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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29633679">Five Seconds</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlippinMickeys/pseuds/SlippinMickeys'>SlippinMickeys</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Compass [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action, Alternate Universe, F/M, MSR, Sequel, on-the-run</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:26:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>34,169</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29633679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlippinMickeys/pseuds/SlippinMickeys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately following the events of "Of The Eight Winds," a newly pregnant Scully, Mulder and their children must go on the run to protect their family.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Compass [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170794</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the sequel to “Of the Eight Winds,” which began from a small simple prompt from Sunflowerdeedsandscience: “Mulder is unhappily married when Scully is partnered with him, and while he doesn't cheat (because sorry that's not romantic), he falls for her so hard that he finally gets the courage to end the marriage and start fresh.” That prompt took on a life of its own that became ‘Of the Eight Winds.’ This fic immediately follows the events of that piece — I would encourage reading it first if you haven’t. </p><p>This is not written in the same Rashomon structure as the original — it is absolutely linear. Hope that doesn’t throw anyone.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>PROLOGUE</strong>
</p><p>They say in the heat of the moment, you have five seconds to make a decision. Five seconds between right and wrong. Five seconds between life and death. As Mulder stood watching one gun pointed at his children and another pointed at an immensely pregnant Scully, five seconds seemed an eternity.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>
  <strong>6 Months Earlier</strong>
</p><p>She watched the house from the shadows. Occasionally from her car. It was harder to follow the woman as she worked at a secure government facility, but the man was easy. He had a small private psychology practice in a townhouse in Old Town. He usually ate lunch at a Panera near the office or brown bagged it from home.</p><p>The kids both attended a private prep school out in McLean. The girl drove herself and her brother most days. The boy would often stay late for sports practice (ice hockey, if the equipment was any indication) and the man would usually pick him up. Their lives were pretty routine.</p><p>After two weeks, she finally made an appointment with the man’s scheduling service and waited nervously in the outer office. Right on time, he opened the door.</p><p>“Olivia?” Dr. Mulder smiled at her, “come on back.”</p><p>She passed him through the doorway and settled into a plush leather couch.</p><p>He sat down in a chair across from her and crossed his leg, looking relaxed. Up close, she noticed that his hair was starting to grey at the temples, but he still looked fit, and conveyed an easy manner.</p><p>“Thank you for seeing me,” she said, trying to calm her nerves.</p><p>“Of course,” he said, looking down at his notebook, “I see you were referred to me by Dr. Heitz Werber?”</p><p>“Yes,” she said.</p><p>“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself,” he said.</p><p>She took a breath.</p><p>“I grew up here in DC. After grad school… My father worked for the State Department and I, uh, went into the family business.”</p><p>Dr. Mulder nodded, his expression neutral.</p><p>“I can imagine that’s pretty stressful work,” he said.</p><p>“It was,” she said, “I don’t do it anymore.”</p><p>He nodded again, waiting for her to fill the silence. She went on.</p><p>“The work I did… it hurt people. And I’m… I’m trying to make amends.”</p><p>His expression gave nothing away. She steeled herself, took a deep breath.</p><p>“Dr. Mulder, my name is Olivia Kurtzweil. Our fathers knew each other a long time ago. I’m here to warn you. You and your family are in danger. Your wife and her baby…”</p><p>His nostrils flared, but he maintained his composure.</p><p>She reached into her pocket and pulled out several pictures.</p><p>“I can prove it,” she said, “This is me and my father, this is me and your sister Samantha. And this is our fathers together.”</p><p>“I think you need to leave,” he said, his voice tight for the first time. He was not looking at the pictures.</p><p>She rose.</p><p>“There’s not a lot of time.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a phone number on it, set it next to the pictures, which she left on the office’s small coffee table. “Call me at this number. Soon. I’ll tell you all I can.”</p><p>With that she left, her heart hammering in her chest.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>
  <strong>CHAPTER ONE</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Arlington Cemetery</em>
  <br/>
  <em>May 2nd, 2018</em>
</p><p>Mulder descended the stairs quickly, the leather bottoms of his dress shoes scraping loudly on the dusty grit of the steps. The occupants of the underground lair were the perfect people to call when you needed information, but good housekeepers they were not.</p><p>He entered the code on the security box at the door at the bottom of the staircase, and the door swung open.</p><p>“Guys?” he called into the cavernous space once the door sealed shut behind him.</p><p>“In here!” he heard a muffled call from near the back.</p><p>He stepped around gunmetal shelves awash in circuitry and computer parts and turned right into the sanctum sanctorum of the place: the desktop on which sat the AMD Threadripper 3000. Two men were hunched over the screen, one sitting, one standing just behind him.</p><p>Grease-stained napkins were wadded up next to the keyboard and crinkled butcher paper sat nearby, sporting the red-splotched remains of marinara sauce and a few errant banana peppers.</p><p>“You want a meatball sub, Mulder?” came the nasally voice of the man standing, “We got extra.”</p><p>“I don’t relish the thought of being up all night with heartburn, Langly, but thanks,” Mulder said, and Frohike turned from the chair, his wispy hair now more white than grey.</p><p>“They’re from Gino’s,” he said around a mouthful, “you’re missing out.”</p><p>“Tell that to Gino,” Mulder said, “didn’t he die of a heart attack in ‘04?”</p><p>“His wife is still running the place, bursting with health,” Frohike said, and reached for a styrofoam cup.</p><p>“But she doesn’t eat the subs,” said Mulder, and swung into a nearby chair. “Where’s Byers?”</p><p>“Staying with Suzanne for the weekend,” Langly said, like he couldn’t imagine why.</p><p>“Is that safe?” Mulder asked. The Gunmen had been hiding out in a government-built safehouse under their own graves in Arlington Cemetery for more than a decade.</p><p>Langly shrugged.</p><p>The three men looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Mulder spoke again.</p><p>“What did you find?”</p><p>“Enough,” said Frohike, turning back to the screen. Mulder stood and walked up behind him.</p><p>Frohike tapped a picture on the screen.</p><p>“Olivia Kurtzweil,” he said, “born December 4th, 1963, daughter of Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil and Ruth O’Brien Kurtzweil. Graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC in 1981, got a PhD in both Biology and Virology from Boston University in 1987. Employment records get kind of muddled after that, but it would make sense if she worked for the State Department, though what a Biologist/Virologist would be doing for State is troubling.”</p><p>Mulder leaned back. It was the same woman who’d been in his office earlier that day.</p><p>“And the pictures?” he asked, “of our fathers together? Of her and Samantha?”</p><p>“The real McCoy,” Langly said, “they don’t appear to be altered in any way. Sent them to Chuck Burks, too. He concurs.”</p><p>Mulder sighed heavily.</p><p>“What’s going on, Mulder?” Frohike asked, his tone serious.</p><p>“She came to my office today, Olivia Kurtzweil,” he said, nodding at the screen, “she told me that Scully is in danger.”</p><p>“In danger?” Langly said, puzzled, “how?”</p><p>“Scully is…” Mulder paused, “she’s pregnant,” he said, and he saw both men’s eyebrows go up. “This woman told me that our family... that Scully and the baby are in danger.”</p><p>Frohike and Langly traded looks.</p><p>“We haven’t told anyone about the pregnancy,” Mulder went on, “and Scully’s OB is an old friend from med school that she trusts implicitly. This Kurtzweil woman knows about the baby and insists it’s in danger. I need to know what’s going on.”</p><p>“Firstly,” said Frohike, who stood and put a hand on Mulder’s shoulder, “Mazel tov.” Mulder smiled at him. “Secondly,” he went on, “it appears as though this woman is telling the truth -- at least about who she is -- I would talk to her. See what you can find out.”</p><p>“How’s Scully taking this?” Langly asked.</p><p>“I haven’t told her yet,” Mulder said, and the boys traded another look. “I didn’t want to scare her without knowing more.”</p><p>Frohike squeezed his shoulder again and then let his arm fall.</p><p>“Let us know, huh?” he said, “However we can help.”</p><p>Mulder nodded and drifted back toward the door, a ball of worry sitting heavy in his gut.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>“Where are the kids?” he asked as soon as he walked in the kitchen. He hadn’t even taken off his coat.</p><p>“I had a good day, thanks for asking,” said Scully with a grin. She was loading the dishwasher and turned to look at him. Her face fell, turning serious. “The kids are upstairs. What’s wrong?”</p><p>“I had a patient come in today…” he started, and her features softened. She probably thought it was just empathy for one of his patients, a tough case. “Scully, she showed me a picture of herself as a kid. With Samantha.”</p><p>“What?” Scully said, standing up straight, “how?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he said, and moved past her and into the living room, making for the bookshelf that held old family photo albums. He pulled one out and skimmed through it. Pulled out another. Halfway through, something caught his eye and he flipped back a couple of pages until he saw it. A picture from the same 70’s-era party at his childhood home on the Vineyard that Olivia had shown him. There was his father standing next to Alvin Kurtzweil, and down in the corner, both wearing swimsuits and gap-toothed smiles, pigtails frizzy and wet, sat Samantha and a 7 year-old Olivia Kurtzweil.</p><p>He felt his breath leave him.</p><p>Scully had come up quietly behind him, put her hand on his arm.</p><p>“Mulder?” she said.</p><p>“I need to make a call,” he said.</p><p>He pulled the note Olivia had left with him out of his pocket. She picked up on the first ring.</p><p>“Olivia, this is Dr. Mulder,” he said. “We need to talk.”</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>The next morning at 9:00am, they found themselves sitting across their kitchen table from Olivia Kurtzweil, Special Agent Monica Reyes, ASAC John Doggett and Assistant Director Walter Skinner.</p><p>Scully was sitting, arms crossed in front of her defensively, at the head of the table. Reyes sat next to her, looking at Kurtzweil with an equal amount of curiosity and distrust. Doggett was too amped up to sit and paced through their kitchen. Skinner sat, quiet and still, looking as menacing as ever at the far end of the table.</p><p>Mulder felt a certain odd protectiveness toward Olivia, and couldn’t help but treat her a bit like a patient.</p><p>“Olivia,” he said calmly, “why don’t you start at the beginning.”</p><p>The tale she spun was as fantastic as anything they’d ever heard in their years on the X-Files. Olivia had been groomed from childhood to work on what she called “The Project.” When Samantha Mulder had been abducted, The Project had used her DNA to create alien-human hybrids. Throughout the years, these hybrids had been used by different factions of The Project to further their agendas in relation to a colonization project that Olivia said once threatened the world. She had fought with others to bring it down and now, The Project’s last ditch effort to resurrect itself lay in the cells of the child Scully was carrying.</p><p>“How was my father involved?” Mulder said, his voice like ice.</p><p>“Your father did everything he could to protect you and your sister,” Olivia said after a pause. “He was the person I initially approached when I became disenchanted. He and I worked together for years dismantling everything we could.”</p><p>Mulder narrowed his eyes at her.</p><p>“You were at my father’s funeral a couple years ago,” he said, recognition dawning on him, “I saw you at his wake.”</p><p>Olivia nodded.</p><p>“He couldn’t save your sister,” she said, “but he saved you. And in the end, he saved me.”</p><p>“My sister,” Mulder said, his stomach feeling as though it were in his feet, “is she alive?”</p><p>“No,” Olivia said, “I’m so sorry. And that’s the problem. Your sister’s DNA was the only one that was able to create viable hybrids. Her DNA was the key. And the last living hybrid sacrificed herself before a rogue faction could get her. That rogue faction is after Scully and your baby for the DNA markers particular to your family.”</p><p>“Then why aren’t they after me?”</p><p>“The particular markers they’re looking for are rendered dormant after a baby is born. The genetic material they can use is only found in--”</p><p>Scully spoke for the first time, finishing Olivia’s explanation. “Embryonic stem cells from our baby.”</p><p>Olivia looked pained and nodded. “It’s their last, best hope for restarting the program,” she said.</p><p>“How do they even know about the pregnancy? We haven’t told a soul.”</p><p>“A hack on your medical records is my guess. HIPAA means nothing to these people.”</p><p>“I’m less concerned with the how and more concerned with the why,” Mulder said. “You say embryonic cells. That means they’re on a clock, right? Once the baby is born...”</p><p>“Destroy the umbilical cord. The placenta. Those cells are only found in a few places. Destroy anything they might be able to use. After that… you and your baby will be safe.”</p><p>“So no one else in our family is in danger?” Scully asked. Her eyes darted unconsciously to a family picture that was framed on the wall above Olivia. It was a candid photo, taken the year before when they had hired a photographer to take Lily’s senior portraits. In it, Mulder and Scully were holding hands, looking at their two kids who were laughing about something Will had said. They were all smiling and carefree. In the moment, it felt like a world away.</p><p>“I know the technology and the biology it draws from,” Olivia said, “I helped design it. Their only hope is getting their hands on the embryonic stem cells from your baby. If you were planning on getting an amniocentesis test -- don’t.”</p><p>“Why not?” Skinner asked, “why not just give them what they want?”</p><p>“Because they’ll never stop,” Reyes said.</p><p>Olivia shook her head sadly. “She’s right. They take and they take, and they don’t care who gets hurt or what is lost.” She looked to Mulder. “Your father and I worked for years to shut it down. Finish it. Hide your wife. Protect your baby. Once it’s born, you should all be out of danger.”</p><p>“Tell me about this rogue faction,” Doggett’s voice coming from the corner of the kitchen startled everyone.</p><p>“Mercs for hire,” Olivia said, “Only one of them that I know of is familiar with the working pieces of The Project. I don’t know him well. I only ever saw him in the periphery.”</p><p>“Do you have a name?” Doggett asked.</p><p>“I doubt it’s his real one,” Olivia said.</p><p>“We’ll take whatever you can give us,” said Reyes, who shot a look to Doggett.</p><p>“I only ever heard him called ‘Krycek,’” she said.</p><p>Mulder felt his gut drop.</p><p>XxX</p><p>“What do you think?” Mulder asked Scully, as they sat together around their empty dining room table. Doggett, Reyes and Skinner had left and it was nearly noon, the sun bright outside their windows. Nevertheless, the room felt cold. Mulder could feel anxiety press on him from all sides as though he were under water.</p><p>“I don’t know what to think,” Scully said, a hand resting unconsciously on her stomach, which had just started to push out. “Mulder, for almost fifteen years our lives have been ordinary, calm. After all this time…? It strains credulity.”</p><p>“Scully I would agree with you. But… some of the things we saw when we were on the X-Files… We know credible threats. This feels like a credible threat.”</p><p>“Do you really believe everything she said? About your sister?” He could see her skeptical reserve crumbling.</p><p>Mulder let that question sit in the air for several long moments. “Just tell me if the science checks out,” he finally said.</p><p>Scully huffed an almost amused sigh. “I couldn’t even begin to-” she started.</p><p>“Scully, you yourself were filling in the blanks of Olivia’s story. <em>If</em> what she says is true, does the science check out?”</p><p>Scully gave him a long look. “Yes,” she finally said.</p><p>He held her gaze, a feeling of overwhelming affection coming over him. “Scully,” he said quietly, “we have to get you somewhere safe.”</p><p>She looked down, added another hand to her abdomen so she was cradling it with both. On the countertop, there was a half drunk bottle of Deer Park and a single yellowing banana. Someone had left their iPhone headphones sitting in a semi-coiled loop, and there were crumbs in front of the toaster, dishes in the sink. They sat in the middle of a half-lived life.</p><p>“I won’t leave without you,” she finally said, “without you and the kids. We all do this together. If the threat is really what Kurtzweil says it is, I couldn’t bear the thought of them trying to use you or the kids to get to me.”</p><p>Mulder nodded curtly.</p><p>“I’ll go to the guys,” he said, “see what they can do for us. Skinner and Doggett and Reyes will do what they can to protect us, but I think given everything we’ve heard, it’s best to avoid… governmental oversight.”</p><p>“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Scully said.</p><p>“We need to leave soon. We can’t wait.”</p><p>Apgar jumped on the table then, looking for affection. Scully, who normally wouldn’t tolerate a cat on any eating surface, reached out and pet the cat absently, her eyes far away.</p><p>“Where are we even going to go?” she asked.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was decided the best place to go would be the Midwest -- far from family on the coasts. They’d avoid the biggest cities -- Chicago, Detroit -- but still stick to denser populations; mid-sized cities on the edge of farmland -- it would give them the ability to lose tails in the chaos of town or hit the road quickly and disappear into the woods. A college town where no one would think anything of a new family moving in at the beginning of a semester. It was early May and the summer semester would begin soon at many universities. Frohike said he had a trustworthy contact nearby, so they settled on Lansing, Michigan.</p><p>The inheritance from Mulder’s father’s estate would keep them afloat for as long as they needed. Now they just needed to tell the kids.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Frohike handed him a shoebox. Mulder opened it to find new IDs for the whole family. They were now the McDonald family of Okemos, Michigan. The driver’s licenses looked real, as did the passports. Mulder thumbed through everything slowly.</p><p>“How’d you get these so fast?” he asked, looking up.</p><p>Frohike shrugged. “Best not to ask.”</p><p>Mulder leveled a look at the older man.</p><p>“If either of my kids ever come to you for a fake ID, I’m hiring a plane and skywriting your location,” he said.</p><p>Langly snorted from his chair.</p><p>“This is your new address,” Frohike said, handing Mulder a piece of paper that he threw in the box. “Subleased a furnished house from a professor traveling on sabbatical. Darlene will meet you there at noon on Friday. Don’t be late, she gets cranky.”</p><p>“Darlene?” Mulder asked.</p><p>“Darlene Frohike,” Byers piped in. “Melvin’s sister.”</p><p>“You have a sister?” Mulder said, surprised. He pictured Frohike with breasts and long hair and felt one eye start to twitch.</p><p>“Go to her if you need help,” Frohike said, “she lives nearby.”</p><p>“You have a sister?” Mulder said again.</p><p>Frohike glared at him.</p><p>“They used to run pacifists over the border into Windsor, Canada during ‘Nam,” Langly helpfully piped up. “She can roll.”</p><p>“She can roll?” Mulder asked.</p><p>“Her kung-fu’s the best,” Frohike said seriously.</p><p>Mulder held up the box of fake documents.</p><p>“Family affair, huh?” he said, and Frohike shrugged.</p><p>Mulder thumbed through everything one more time before departing the bunker. They’d been generous with Scully’s height and his weight. He could picture his wife’s smirk already.</p><p>“Hey, Mulder?” Frohike called out just as he opened the door. Mulder glanced back at the three men. “Be careful.”</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Mulder called a family meeting as soon as the kids walked in the door that evening. After the news they’d received the last time their parents had sat down with them like this, they both looked at them with trepidation.</p><p>“God, you’re not about to tell us Mom’s having twins, are you?” Lily said, plopping down on the couch in the living room. Will lowered himself down next to her, his eyes darting back and forth between his parents. When neither Mulder nor Scully laughed, Lily’s face fell. “What’s going on?” she asked seriously.</p><p>Mulder had debated with Scully how honest to be with them. While he thought they were old enough to handle the full truth, neither wanted to scare them. And yet they needed to know the severity of the situation. A parent’s eternal dilemma.</p><p>“Our family is in some trouble,” he started, sharing a look with Scully. “And we’re going to need to leave town for a while.”</p><p>“When?” Lily asked, “For how long?”</p><p>“What kind of trouble?” Will asked.</p><p>“There are some people that are after your mom-” Mulder started, and both kids interrupted him quickly.</p><p>“What kind of people?” Lily asked, at the same time, Will, whose voice rose almost an octave, said:</p><p>“After her for what?”</p><p>Mulder rubbed a hand over his face. He was perched on the arm of the chair Scully occupied, and she reached out and took his hand.</p><p>“I think we need to start from the beginning,” she said. “The very beginning.”</p><p>She gave his hand a squeeze and began talking. Starting with the abduction of Samantha Mulder, Scully gave a thorough, yet succinct account of the ins and outs of their current predicament, making the whole outlandish tale sound coherent and almost reasonable. Both kids listened to her raptly and remained calm, and Mulder once again thanked his lucky stars for the woman next to him. For all the tumult they’d experienced through the years, there was no one he’d rather have by his side.</p><p>“I have a friend -- some friends -- that have set us up with a new life-” Mulder said, when Scully was finally done talking.</p><p>He was interrupted by Lily.</p><p>“The friends who you visit at Arlington Cemetery? The ones we’re not supposed to know about? Those friends?”</p><p>Mulder looked to Scully who wore a surprised smile.</p><p>“I haven’t said a thing, Mulder,” she said, looking to him.</p><p>“Lily hid in the trunk of your car once,” said Will.</p><p>“Will!” Lily shouted at her brother.</p><p>“Lil, is that true?” Scully asked her daughter, concerned. Lily wouldn’t meet her eyes.</p><p>“I’m not sure whether to be terrified or impressed,” Mulder said. Then shook his head. Back to the topic at hand. He would worry about<em> that</em> later. “Anyway, those friends have set us up with a life in the Midwest for a year, probably less. Until the heat is off. Until we’re sure we’re all safe.”</p><p>“Where in the Midwest?” Lily said with trepidation.</p><p>“Michigan,” Scully said.</p><p>“They’ve got good hockey in Michigan,” Will offered, and Mulder wanted to hug the kid for his optimism.</p><p>Lily looked pained. “What about school?” she said. “What about UVA?” She was supposed to start college there in the fall.</p><p>“Lil, these people are not above using you to get to us. The only safe thing is for you and Will to come with us. It’s not even for a year. You can defer. Just the fall semester,” Mulder said.</p><p>Lily fell back against the cushions on the couch. Scully and Mulder shared a look.</p><p>“And we have to leave soon,” Scully said, “before graduation.”</p><p>Will reached out and put his hand on his sister’s knee, his face all sympathy. To her credit, Lily looked at her little brother and gave him a thankful look, a small uptick of the lips. Will turned back to his parents.</p><p>“When do we have to start packing?” he asked.</p><p>“Tonight,” Mulder said.</p><p>XxX</p><p>A day later found Mulder in the attic with Lily and William, going through boxes, taking the few things that they had in storage that they thought they might need. Mulder had grabbed a tent, a few sleeping bags, a kit knife, various useful odds and ends.</p><p>Will was over in the corner and had unearthed a box of old pictures and held one up for Mulder’s perusal.</p><p>“What’s this one from?” his son asked.</p><p>Mulder came over to take a look. It was a glossy 8x10 of him and Scully facing each other, framed in profile, hovering on the edge of a crime scene. He remembered it, now. It had been taken by a federal crime scene tech who’d finished documenting a scene and had needed to finish off the roll of film. Mulder had seen him snapping and had handed the guy a fiver. Two weeks later it arrived in an interoffice envelope, accompanied by three dollars and a post-it that said “keep the change.”</p><p>In the photo, Scully was looking up at him, the sun at her back slanting on her autumn hair so that it shone like a halo of spun gold. She was wearing a dark suit, as was her wont, the bulge of her service weapon at her back, one arm out and gesturing at something out of frame. He was struck, as he always seemed to be, by her exquisite beauty; her face was a composition. A work of art. A call to prayer.</p><p>“God,” he said, a little awestruck, “look how young we were.”</p><p>“Mom used to be really pretty,” Will said, and though he said it kindly, Mulder turned to him slowly.</p><p>“I’m sorry, ‘<em>Used to be</em>?’” he said.</p><p>Will looked nervously between his father and Lily.</p><p>“She’s still pretty?” Will said, more as a question than a statement.</p><p>“God damn right,” he said, “Every day I thank my lucky stars that she still deigns to share my bed.”</p><p>“Dad, don’t be gross,” from Lily, who at 18 didn’t mind her parent’s displays of affection so long as they weren’t public.</p><p>“Gross?” Mulder said, pointing at each of them. “Gross? You were born of the loins of an ethereal creature of heaven, the both of you. Don’t blaspheme.”</p><p>“Says the guy who just said ‘God damn,’” said Lily, cheekily.</p><p>Mulder grinned and turned back to the photo.</p><p>“<em>To me, fair friend, you never can be old, for as you were when first your eye I ey’d, such seems your beauty still</em>,” Mulder said, looking at it.</p><p>“Which sonnet?” Lily asked.</p><p>“104,” he said, and they shared a smile. Another silent moment of admiring the photo and he set it down, turned to his children. “All right,” he said, “pack what you need. Let’s get a move on.”</p><p>He added the picture to his own cache.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Something caught Lily’s eye as her father was folding up the old box of photos. The corner of a glossy 5x7 was sticking up from the edge of the box -- in it, she saw her father’s face, smiling, looking extremely young.</p><p>She helped him shove it back into the corner of the attic with a scrape of cardboard on plywood and he stood, head still bent down in the cramped space so as not to crack his skull on the slanted beams.</p><p>William was already heading back down the rickety ladder onto the landing below them, the hollow sound of his steps on the aluminum like the beat of a drum.</p><p>“You okay, Lil?” her father asked, his eyes squinted at her in concern. She was still kneeling by the box.</p><p>“Yeah,” she said, smiling at him, and glanced around the attic, at the memories their family had built up over the years. She hoped they’d be able to revisit them one day. Deep down she was afraid this might be the last time she saw some of these things -- an old box of her brother’s LEGOs, her Raggedy Ann, the doll’s black button eyes fixed and sightless, a wispy cobweb hanging limply off her yarn hair.</p><p>“Let’s get out of here, then,” he said, and reached down to help her up.</p><p>Before she took it, she reached out and pulled at the glossy photo, sliding it easily out of the box and slipping it surreptitiously into her back pocket as she stood. It crinkled in her jeans as she walked toward the attic ladder with her father behind her, as she moved on toward she knew not what.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Scully sat in her car with her keys in her hand, staring at the woman’s house, debating whether or not to get out.</p><p>She had faith in her husband and all her things in a suitcase, but there was still a small part of her that didn’t quite believe the tale Olivia Kurtzweil had told them. In all their years working together on the X-Files, Mulder had always been the engine, and she had always been the brake -- and the impulse to tap the pedal when faced with the fantastic had never left her, even after more than a decade out of the basement office.</p><p>She drummed her nails on the steering wheel once and then made a decision, shoving the keys into the pocket of her coat, double checking that her service weapon was in order, and sliding out of her car and onto the sidewalk. She wanted one last talk with the woman before committing to this drastic course of action.</p><p>It hadn’t been easy to find Kurtzweil’s address -- even with the Bureau’s resources at her fingertips. She’d had to call in a favor to a friend with ties to the State Department to get it.</p><p>The street Kurtzweil lived on was quiet, just outside of Pentagon City. Parking on the street was by permit only, and there were hardly any cars. The house was a one-story ranch with a long porch, big enough for two rocking chairs, which were tilted at an angle toward each other just-so. The landscaping was impeccable and there weren’t any bugs in the porch lights. Olivia ran a tidy ship that Scully could appreciate.</p><p>She hesitated one last time at the door before reaching for the doorbell. She’d debated the merits of coming unannounced and had settled on the element of surprise -- hoping if the woman were lying about anything, unprepped and unrehearsed, Scully might be able to suss out lie from truth.</p><p>She heard the bell ring inside the house and waited for muffled footsteps or perhaps the bark of a dog. She was met with silence. She gave it about another ten seconds before ringing the bell again. When there was still no answer, she walked over to the garage and stood on tiptoes to peer through the window. There was a BMW parked inside. Scully made her way back to the door, and reached up to give it a knock. When her knuckles hit the wood the door gave an inch and suddenly feeling unsettled, Scully pushed it slowly the rest of the way open.</p><p>Just inside the door there was a purse laying on its side and a cascade of unopened mail fanned out on the floor. A chill ran up Scully’s spine and she reached for her sidearm, suddenly glad she’d brought it.</p><p>“Olivia?” she called tentatively, before taking a step inside, the gun held out in front of her, listening sharply for any hint of sound. None came.</p><p>She swept the perimeter of the entryway, all her senses on high alert. Hearing nothing, she called out Olivia’s name again. Still silence.</p><p>She turned the corner into the main part of the living area -- an open concept living room, dining room, kitchen, and nothing looked out of place. She edged her way slowly into the kitchen, and that’s when she saw it; two feet sticking out behind a large island in the kitchen.</p><p>Scully darted forward and slid to her knees next to the woman, quickly taking in what she saw before her: Olivia Kurtzweil had been shot, a double-tap to the head and one to the heart--a professional kill. Knowing she wouldn’t find it, Scully reached out to feel for a pulse in the woman’s neck. Her body was still warm.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Mulder stood in the elevator, his finger hovering over the ‘12.’ It was one of the newer office buildings outside the district, a high rise of dark glass and steel. He thought maybe he should have called first, but hadn’t wanted to risk it. Finally, he depressed the button and the elevator lurched to life.</p><p>On the twelfth floor, the doors opened to a brightly lit lobby, the walls and floor all stark white granite. There was a sleek reception desk ahead, manned by an even sleeker looking young blond woman, who looked at him expectantly as he approached.</p><p>“Hello,” she smiled, not showing teeth, “Can I help you?”</p><p>“I’m here to see Lauren Williams,” he hedged, and the woman’s eyebrows shot up.</p><p>“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked.</p><p>“No,” he said, and started to wonder if he should have come at all.</p><p>“Okay,” the woman said slowly, narrowing her eyes, “I can call her assistant and ask if she can see you. Your name?”</p><p>Mulder felt like a bug under a microscope.</p><p>“Tell her it’s Fox,” he said.</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“One moment.”</p><p>Mulder glanced at his watch. They were supposed to be on the road in four hours. This was a last minute stop for him, a barely thought-out ‘what if’ plan C in case the whole thing went to shit.</p><p>When he glanced back up, the receptionist was looking at him expectantly.</p><p>“She’ll be out in a moment,” she said, and Mulder smiled his thanks and took a few awkward steps back.</p><p>There was a small waiting area to the left of reception, but the seats looked more modern than comfortable, and the entire space had a disinfected don’t-sit-here vibe to it. Set dressing.</p><p>After a moment he heard the efficient clicks of approaching heels, and turned to see his ex-wife coming out of a metal door that he’d thought was a wall.</p><p>“Fox?” she said, her face one of pleased surprise.</p><p>“Lauren,” he said, as she leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this. You look well.”</p><p>She did. She was in a crisp grey suit that was likely Chanel or Hermes, and trim as ever. Her face looked sculpted and her skin clear and bright. Not a wrinkle to be found. A mild cloud of the same perfume she always wore clung to her, lending her an air of sophistication where it may have made other women seem like they were trying too hard. She leaned back, holding onto one of his forearms and gave him an assessing look.</p><p>“You look… worried,” she finally said, her eyes narrowing a bit in concern.</p><p>He didn’t reply, and she turned to the receptionist.</p><p>“Thank you, Amanda,” she said smartly and inclined her head toward the metal door/wall which clicked open as they approached it.</p><p>She led him down a long hallway, with glass conference rooms lining one side and open concept work stations along the other. At the far end, she opened a floor-to-ceiling glass door and led him into a large and immaculate corner office.</p><p>Mulder raised his eyebrows, impressed.</p><p>“You’ve done well for yourself,” he said, “it’s been a while.” She shut the door behind them and gestured to a small sitting area off to the side of the office. It was more welcoming than the lobby seating had been, and he slid into one of the chairs gratefully.</p><p>“Executive Vice President,” she said proudly, and took the chair opposite him. She settled into the leather of the seat and leveled a look at him. “You okay, Fox?”</p><p>Mulder glanced at the door, at the bustle of the office beyond it. No one seemed to pay them any mind.</p><p>“I’m…” he started, “we’re in some trouble.”</p><p>“You and Scully?” Lauren asked kindly, “Is she okay?”</p><p>“Yes,” Mulder smiled, “she’s good, she’s…”</p><p>He fumbled a bit. Not quite sure where to start.</p><p>“Is it money?” Lauren asked. “Do you need-”</p><p>Mulder cut her off, laughing uncomfortably. He and Scully both made a very good living, and his father’s estate would have kept them more than afloat even if they didn’t. He huffed a deep sigh, and she sat quiet and patient, looking at him in concern.</p><p>“Our family is in danger, Lauren,” he finally said, “and we need to disappear for a little while.”</p><p>Her brow furrowed.</p><p>“Is it Scully’s work at the FBI?” she started, “Is it-”</p><p>He once again cut her off.</p><p>“Listen, I don’t want to tell you much for your own protection. The less you know, the better.”</p><p>She nodded, her brow furrowed with concern.</p><p>“The reason I’m here is… we’re going away for a while. Headed to the Midwest.” She remained silent, waiting for him to continue. “Do you… does your aunt still have that hunting camp up in Michigan?”</p><p>He saw a small smile crack through her unease. Lauren’s Aunt Clio was half Williams Family Secret, half Williams Family Legend. A bright, effusive personality, she was blustery and smart, and unpretentious to the point of embarrassment, as far as Lauren and her upper-crust-endeavoring parents were concerned. She lived in Ohio, where she and Lauren’s father had been raised, ten years the man’s senior. She kept a hunting camp in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan called Camp Hi Early. She hunted deer throughout the state’s archery season and had told a story at Mulder and Lauren’s wedding reception about running at a bear with an axe from the outhouse. The story had mortified Lauren at the time -- Mulder had just been delighted. Aunt Clio had been drinking straight whiskey at the party, and had just been about to tell Mulder a story of running ‘shine when Lauren had pulled him away and to the dance floor. Mulder had never forgotten it, or her.</p><p>“Aunt Cli died last year,” she said with a begrudging smile. Mulder marveled. The woman must have been close to a hundred years old. Lauren’s eyes met his. “But she left me the camp.”</p><p>“You still have it?” Mulder asked, amazed, “it doesn’t seem like your kind of… scene.”</p><p>Lauren laughed.</p><p>“That it’s not. But there’s a mining company that has its eyes on the northern 100 acres, and if they get their hands on it whether from me or from someone I might sell to, Clio Williams will haunt me from the grave.”</p><p>Mulder laughed, felt something loosen in his chest.</p><p>“If you need it, it’s yours, Fox,” Lauren said, the humor dissipating from her voice.</p><p>He leaned back in the chair.</p><p>“We probably won’t need it,” he said, “it’s just something I thought of as a distant Plan C. But if we need to get out fast -- if we need to go somewhere we can’t be found…”</p><p>Lauren nodded and stood, moved over to her desk.</p><p>“It’s rustic, Fox,” she said, and sat down in the chair, pulling open a desk drawer. “And not <em>charming</em>-rustic. It’s rustic-rustic. And likely in disrepair. I sent a local handyman out there this past spring. He assured me that the roof doesn’t leak and the windows aren’t broken, but that’s about it.” She was rifling distractedly though the drawer. “I’m not sure how well outfitted it is, and It’s probably overrun with mice and squirrels. He said it looked like a moose had been gnawing on the siding…”</p><p>“It’ll be a last resort,” he said seriously.</p><p>Lauren paused and looked at him.</p><p>“Bad?” she asked.</p><p>“Pretty bad,” he nodded.</p><p>She winced and stood, an envelope in her hand. She made her way over to him and raised it.</p><p>“This is the key to the padlock on the cabin door,” she said, “and a map to the camp. The handyman I hired drew it up for me, not the other way around, mind you. I haven’t been out there since I was a kid and Aunt Cli took me up there to teach me to shoot. There’s the boondocks and there’s this. I’m talking county highway to a dirt road to a two-track. A seasonal road that the county doesn’t plow. I don’t even know if an SUV can get in there. The road to Camp may be impassable...” she handed him the envelope.</p><p>“That’s what I’m counting on,” he said.</p><p>Lauren reached out and squeezed his shoulder, the concern on her face cutting rare lines into her perfect skin.</p><p>“I want you to check in with me, let me know you’re okay,” she said, “do you feel safe doing that?”</p><p>Mulder nodded, put his hand over hers where it rested on her shoulder, squeezed.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said.</p><p>“I’m serious, Fox,” she said, “if I call, you answer your fucking phone. I’m scared for you. For the kids and Dana.”</p><p>“I promise,” he said, giving her hand one last squeeze before he rose to leave. “I’ll send you a number when I’ve got one.”</p><p>His phone rang then, like a premonition. He answered.</p><p>“Mulder?” Scully said into his ear, her voice shaky with panic. He heard the slam of a car door. “We have to leave. <em>Now</em>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Major thanks to my betas, Annie, Monika (you were the wind beneath my wings these last nine months on this), Lin, Annie, Dina and Kristin. A thousand thank yous for your work and support.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They were just passing over the border into Ohio when Lily shifted in her seat and felt the crinkle of photograph paper under her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Monica Reyes, whom Lily had known only as an acquaintance of her parents, had pulled up to the house earlier in the day with a screech of tires and instructed both kids to grab any last minute things and get them into her car. Twenty minutes later, with the family’s two cats moaning plaintively from between them in the rear seat, they pulled under an overpass in the Springfield Mixing Bowl where both their parents were waiting with a new-to-them SUV and worried expressions. Her father had pulled her into a hug so tight, she’d been temporarily short of breath.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As the miles wore on, and they were assured that they hadn’t been followed, everyone in the car began to relax. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will was sitting in the other captain’s chair in the back seat of the vehicle -- a black Yukon with Pennsylvania dealer plates -- he had headphones on and his nose stuck in a graphic novel. Her mother was asleep in the passenger seat, her head tilted on the headrest toward her father, who was driving, sunglasses on, now hours into a spell of highway hypnosis. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pulled the photo out to finally give it a look and was surprised to see that it was a wedding photo. In it, her father was smiling without teeth, in a loose-fitting black tuxedo, a white rose boutonniere affixed to his lapel. He was looking down at the woman in his arms, the bride, who was only a few inches shorter than he was, a thin brunette who was most assuredly not her mother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily had known her father had been married before -- she was over a year old when he’d married her mother and she had attended the wedding as a dandelion-haired toddler -- but it was something her father rarely talked about, and, she had suspected, not the happiest of times in Fox Mulder’s life. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She studied the woman in the photo curiously, seeing nothing that reminded her of her short, redheaded mother, who always looked intelligently -- sometimes aloofly -- at the world with a kind blue gaze. The woman in the picture held her head high, looking straight into the gaze of Fox Mulder, challenging but pleased, a victorious glint in her eye. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily tried to remember the woman’s name. Laura? Lauren? Something with an L. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her father had always been a self-assured man, nearly always correct in his theories and assumptions. She wondered how he could have made such a major miscalculation as to marry a woman that was any less perfect for him than Dana Scully was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was intrigued. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With another look out the back windshield -- though her parents both said they were safe, she still felt mildly jumpy -- she shoved the picture back into her pocket as the mile markers flew by the window outside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Scully is sitting on rock in a meadow, her bare feet spread out on the boulder below her, the rock sun-warmed and specked with lichen. Her stomach still has that full, bloated feeling of pregnancy, but when she looks down, her waist is concave, narrower than even in her prepubescent days. That tether of connection she felt with her children in her other pregnancies is still there, but it feels stretched out, pulling her eyes up and out to the meadow before her, where there is a small dark-headed child walking lightly through the wildflowers, its ice-blue eyes cast down, hands out to run lightly along the tops of the flowers it passes as it walks. She squints as the child approaches. It is a boy, she thinks. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The sky is a fathomless blue and there is no wind that she can feel, though the meadow before her undulates as though from a zephyr. She can hear the soft padding of the boy as he gets closer, the crunching of the wild grasses under his feet, their thin stalks whipping against the soles of his shoes. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>When he gets to the boulder, he raises his eyes and looks at Scully without expression, then nods at her. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Mother,” he says, formally. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Hello child,” she says formally back. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His face shows no emotion, but his aura is warm, his face long like his father’s, with the same plump lower lip.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“May I join you?” he asks. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You may.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The boy crawls up onto the rock next to her and sits cross-legged, looking out over the swaying grasses and flowers, each delicate bloom turning its face to the child as though listening for what he’s about to say. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“What happens when the universe stops expanding?” he asks, and though he doesn’t look at her, she knows he expects her to answer. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Maybe it collapses back on itself,” she hears herself say, “returns to the singularity.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“That’s a reasonable answer,” the boy says, rising to his feet, “I can accept that.” </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>She wants to raise her hands to touch him, but her arms won’t move, and she starts to feel a quick surge of panic. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He jumps off the boulder and lands easily on the ground in front of her, then turns to look directly at her, maintaining eye contact as he leans down to pluck a flower and hold it out to her; a bluebell. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Flowers grow from where dirt used to be,” he says, and then, in a much deeper voice, “</span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>wake up</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>.” </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She jolted upright in the passenger seat, the seat belt digging into her clavicle as she did so. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Scully?” Mulder said, from her left, a hint of concern creeping into his voice. He reached a hand over and put it gently on her knee. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She took a deep breath, running a hand along the gentle curve of her belly, willing her heart rate to drop. She exhaled slowly then turned to look at Mulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re here,” he said, nodding his head toward a modest looking house on a residential lane. The houses were close together, though not packed cheek-by-jowl. Small front lawns with large maple trees in front of each one, the new leaves just opening. There was a blue sedan idling in the driveway in front of them. The sun had just begun to sink below the horizon, one last ray shining in through the rear windscreen and onto the white hair of its driver. Scully glanced at the clock. It was nearly 9:00pm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Any sign of a tail?” she asked him, rubbing sleep from her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder shook his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She heard the crack of a metal seat belt hitting the plastic door casing and turned to look into the backseat, where William and Lily were unhooking themselves to bend down and curiously peer through the windshield at the house. She caught William’s eye and smiled at him. He tentatively returned it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You guys stay here for a minute,” Mulder said and then shot a quick look at Scully, which she returned, nodding. Scully’s service weapon was in the glove compartment, and she did a quick calculation of how long it would take her to get it out and into her hands as Mulder jumped down out of the driver’s seat. He allowed himself a quick stretch and crack of the neck before he approached the driver’s side door of the sedan, cautious but confident. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a quick conference with the driver through her open window, Mulder turned toward the SUV and beckoned them over. Scully and the kids tipped themselves out of the Yukon just as the woman opened up her door and heaved herself up and out of the sedan. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was older, at least seventy, with a full head of bushy hair that had been pulled back into a ponytail, her midsection round. She wore jeans and a military style jacket (complete with about 30 various pins) and an ancient pair of Doc Martens that had once been black but were worn into a grey. She had the same nose as Frohike, but otherwise looked markedly different from her brother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mrs. McDonald,” the woman said to Scully, giving her a significant look as she reached out to shake her hand. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Right</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Scully thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>my new name</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Darlene?” Scully said, grasping the proffered palm and giving her hand a firm shake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman nodded and looked to the kids. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is Lily,” said Scully, as Darlene shook hands with her oldest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your name is Lillian now,” Darlene said, and Scully was happy to see Lily take it in stride, nodding. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I like your jacket,” Lily said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can have it when I die,” said Darlene, all business, who then turned to Will. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Billy now,” she said, “You got a problem with Billy?” Darlene asked him as she reached for his hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not unless he’s got a problem with me,” said Will, giving her hand a firm shake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene turned back to Scully. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You get to keep Dana,” she said, then turned to Mulder, “But you…” she said, turning to Mulder, “Do not get to keep Fox.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pity,” he said, not sounding all that broken up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sure you’ve seen from the documents Melvin gave you, but you’re Emmet now. Everyone can call you M. Hopefully it’s an easy transition.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder nodded, and Darlene looked at each of them in turn. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s head into the house,” she said, “I can answer any questions you might have.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The professor who lives here is on sabbatical abroad for a year,” Darlene said, ushering them into the house, “he and I go back quite a ways.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She threw the lock on the front door and then dropped the keys unceremoniously into Mulder’s hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” she said, sounding a touch impatient, though Scully was beginning to suspect that she always sounded that way. The woman made her way into the kitchen and the rest of the family followed like little ducklings all in a row. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve stocked the fridge for a few days, though I’m sure there’s some things I didn’t think of that you’ll need.” She pointed to a couple of credit/debit cards sitting on the otherwise empty kitchen countertop. “Melvin has moved your money around the world and back again. No one will be able to track it. Try to stick with using these cards if you can. If you need cash, use the University Credit Union.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully nodded. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll need your old credit cards, check books, cell phones, laptops, anything they can trace…” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder nodded his head toward the front door. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They’re already in a box out in the car. Phones are off, SIM cards out.” he said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll take them with me for safekeeping,” Darlene said with a curt nod. “There’s a landline here you can use until we get you set up with new phones.” She looked to the kids. “You all ever been on the run before?” The kids shook their heads. “Learn your new names. Call each other by them even when you’re in the house. Don’t even think of leaving the house until you’re convinced that’s always </span>
  <em>
    <span>been</span>
  </em>
  <span> your name. You cannot call your friends. You cannot call your family. You cannot log onto social media. Do not log onto anything using your old login information or password. In fact, it’s best if you stay away from technology full-stop.” At this, both kids froze a bit in their tracks and shared a look. “Start reading books for entertainment. God knows this house has enough of them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At that Scully looked around them at the room they were standing in, an open-concept kitchen/living room. An entire wall was covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves, each shelf filled to bursting with books of every shape and size. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s going to be a big adjustment, but you have no choice. Do it or die.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“O</span>
  <em>
    <span>kay</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Mulder said quickly, putting a hand on Darlene’s shoulder, and ushering her a little further into the kitchen. Scully took a quick assessing look at her kids, and could register an appropriate but not alarming amount of fear on their faces. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is there at least a TV?” Will asked her in alarm, and she shushed him, though hoped to god there was one. Both her children had inherited their father’s penchant to be underfoot when bored, and so help her, any moratorium on technology would not extend to the pre-90’s analog variety. And to think she had almost talked Mulder out of packing a box of their favorite old movies. She turned her attention back to where Darlene and Mulder were talking. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“For the first week or so, I’d like a nightly safety check-in, after that we can space them out. Call this number,” she slapped a magnet on the fridge and pointed to it. It looked like it was for a local pizzeria. “If everything is okay, just say you want a large cheese pizza for take-out. If things seem like they might not be totally kosher, order a large pepperoni. If the shit hits the fan, order a pizza with the works and someone will be out here to help you as soon as humanly possible.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder nodded at her, and she turned, holding up a finger as though she had another thought. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you do actually want to order pizza,” she said, “stick with Cottage Inn. The other places around here are shit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Okemos, Michigan</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>May 6, 2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully heard Mulder awaken with the dawn, sliding out of bed in the periwinkle light. Not long after that, noises came filtering down the hallway of him in the kitchen, fumbling around the unfamiliar space, likely trying to make coffee with a new machine, and opening various cabinets in search of mugs. She dozed after that and came to consciousness however long later, finding Mulder standing in the window of the master bedroom with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, looking out at the backyard of the professor’s house, the new rays of the day slanting on his minky hair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She swung her legs over the side of the bed, searching by feel with her feet for the pair of slippers she’d left next to the bed the night before. She stood and walked slowly to her husband, whose head tilted slightly back as he heard her approach. When she reached him, she wrapped an arm around his waist, leaning into him, and he handed her the mug of coffee without a word. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She took a grateful sip, letting it slide hotly down her throat and he leaned down and kissed her hairline.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s decaf,” he whispered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I appreciate the solidarity,” she said quietly back, and he smiled at her and turned back to the window. She handed the coffee back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wonder how the kids slept,” she said after a quiet minute. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They’re still sleeping,” he said, squeezing her gently into him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mmm,” she said, an idea forming, and she raised herself up on her toes and pressed a kiss into the side of his mouth. He turned her until they were facing each other, their lips still connected. Finally he pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What kind of ‘Mmm’ was that?” he said, his voice low. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nosed his cheek gently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What kind does it feel like?” she asked, and heard the quiet clunk of the mug being placed on the dresser next to the window.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She ran her lips lightly over the stubbly curve of his jaw, reading the story of him in Braille. She’d always been drawn to this gnathic arc of him, when he clenched in anger or passion, the stoutest line of his profile in situ. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For as long as they’d been together, even just the rasp of his skin on her lips still made her weak in the knees; a remnant echo of five years of pent up longing still reverberating down the hallway of their life. Two (plus) kids and a mortgage and her center still clenched when he whispered her name.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My favorite kind,” he said and hoisted her up easily in his arms, her legs going around his waist with practiced ease. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Making love with him had always been revelatory, and these days were no different; her breasts more sensitive with the fluctuating hormones of pregnancy, her center swollen and aching with need. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder moved them to the untested bed in this unfamiliar room, and as he ran a hand up under the soft silk of her pajama top and settled between her legs, it started to feel a bit more like home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They probably had hours before the kids woke up -- the lethargy of teenagehood had settled soundly into their house -- but they still had a tendency toward sex of the quicker sort; stolen moments in rare downtimes, and now was shaping up to be no different. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder had shed his clothes before she knew quite what was happening, and he began tugging at her pajama bottoms with a wicked smile on his face, which he buried in her lap before her pajamas hit the floor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pregnancy already had her as sexually restive as a tightly strung instrument and Mulder played her with his tongue with the familiarity and talent of a maestro. His hand on her breast, tongue laving at her ripe seam, before she knew it she was moaning into the pillow next to her head, practiced in the art of keeping quiet. She tugged on his hair twice, an old cue for him to get his ass where she wanted it, and a moment later he was sliding into her, the blunt head of his penis bumping into her tender cervix. Five deep strokes and she was gone, soaring into the heavens, his name on her lips. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Huge thanks to my betas and support GCs! If you know, you know.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>June 4, 2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder stood in the kitchen wearing only sweatpants, the rented house quiet around him. Scully had headed to the local Meijer for supplies of every stripe, and both kids had leapt at the chance to go with her, a rare occurrence the last few years, but a clear result of forced low profile and cabin fever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was nursing a rare cup of caffeinated coffee and watching a black squirrel make a nuisance of itself on the residence’s sole backyard bird feeder. When his new cell phone rang, he answered it out of muscle memory. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello Fox,” said the person on the other end of the line, “aren’t you a sound for sore ears.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took him a moment to place the voice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lauren,” he said after a moment, smiling into the receiver, “it’s good to hear from you, too. I take it you got the information I sent you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder had had Frohike send her their contact information as they’d previously agreed, and he assumed this was the first of her planned unplanned check-ins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was a little cloak and dagger, even for the District,” she said, and Mulder could hear her smile over the line.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And I always thought you lived for the drama,” he said companionably. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I got to wear my best Carmen SanDiego hat, so I guess I can’t be mad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder chuckled into the receiver. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How’s it going?” Lauren asked, her tone shifting to one of sober inquiry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s going.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dana okay?” her question was sincere, and Mulder marveled how time could change a person.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s good,” he said, “healthy. All systems go. I’m sure she’d want me to send you her best.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And the kids? How are they handling it all?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder sighed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will was adjusting, but Lily was miserable. Lonely and bored, unable to talk to friends back home and without the specter and excitement of starting school in the fall. She’d even begged to be able to get a summer job, even as just a waitress at the local Bennigan’s, but Mulder didn’t like the idea of her being away from the house for hours at a time, and Scully wasn’t sold on their borrowed Social Security numbers passing an employment check. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The kids are… okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Going that well, huh?” she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lil is pretty miserable,” he admitted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course she’s miserable,” Lauren scolded him, “she’s 18 years old and stuck in a house with her well-meaning parents. She should be at the beach with friends getting day drunk on Bud Light-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“-she would never-” Mulder interrupted, to which Lauren outright laughed in his ear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“-I assure you, she already has!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder sighed again. “Aside from dropping her off at the lake and buying her a rack of shit beer, you got any ideas?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“College boys in tight pants,” Lauren said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Excuse me?” Mulder asked, taken aback. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Take the family to a football game Fox, you’re in a Big Ten town for Christ’s sake.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not football season yet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just take her somewhere with a lot of people. And give her a little bit of freedom. And when it is football season?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah?” Mulder asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Take her to see the tight pants.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <em>
    <span>September 3, 2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had been months and they started to relax, maybe a bit too much. They were alert, but comfortable. Maybe complacent, Mulder couldn't tell. All he knew was that if he kept the kids in the house for much longer, they'd kill each other and possibly him and Scully in the crossfire, and it would defeat the whole purpose of their hiding out. That said, all was quiet on the homefront -- Darlene and the Gunmen, and to a lesser extent, Doggett, Reyes and Skinner -- had heard nothing with their ears to the ground.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He and Scully had discussed it, and decided that they would let the kids out of the house. They allowed them to socialize occasionally, if they promised to be careful. Will had made a couple of friends around the neighborhood, playing roller hockey in their cul de sac, but Lily hadn't had as much luck, or as much motivation. She had been quiet and keeping mostly to herself, and come September, Mulder had decided to finally take Lauren's advice. They were going to a football game.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>William was beside himself with excitement which made up for Lily's lack of enthusiasm. Scully had opted out of attending, citing her increasing need of accessible bathrooms and the inevitable long lines at ladies rooms in sports arenas. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They took the bus to the edge of the MSU campus -- the first time any of them had been on it since moving to the town several months before. There were people everywhere -- most dressed in the hometown colors of green and white, but a rare few -- looking as lost on campus as the Mulders themselves -- in the brown and gold of the visiting team. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder had ducked into the student union to get a campus map, whereupon William insisted he buy all three of them something supporting the hometown team. Lily opted out, but William and Mulder walked out each in a brand new ball cap, the brims stiff and flat -- in addition, William was carrying a big foam finger emblazoned with the number 1 and the gruff face of Michigan State's Spartan mascot, Sparty. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's this way," Mulder said, consulting his map and pointing south, and they set off following streams of people headed toward the stadium which sat in the middle of campus. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The day was delightfully mild, and while the sun shone, there were fat clouds everywhere that would cover it as soon as you were at risk of overheating. There seemed to be tailgate parties set up at increasing concentrations the closer they got to the stadium, the air thick with the scent of grilling meat and tinny stereos playing the home school's fight song. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were frat boys throwing a football back and forth every thirty or so feet, and crowds of coeds sipping beer from green Solo cups, hovering around games of corn hole and beer pong, laughing while they clung to each other like the last few Cheerios floating in a bowl of milk. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder stole a glance at Lily, who looked at them wistfully. School had just started here at Michigan State and the week before at UVA, and Mulder could tell his daughter was fairly heartbroken about not being able to attend. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder pulled up short and Lily and William both stopped several steps past him and turned to look at him expectantly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"One sec," he said and walked over to a large tent wherein an alumni organization was selling hot dogs and brats to raise funds. He bought three bratwurst and a couple of sodas and walked them back to his kids, hands full and pockets overflowing with napkins and little packets of ketchup and mustard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nodded toward a low stone wall that ran along the length of one of the sidewalks and they all sat down and ate sloppily, ketchup plopping to the sidewalk that they leaned over so as not to spill on their clothes. William was of course done first and snapped open his soda, slurping from it happily. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"They call it pop here," he said, raising his can and giving his father a cheeky smirk. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No one cares, Billy," Lily said, wiping her lips delicately with a napkin and setting the last quarter of the brat on the wall beside her. "I'm stuffed," she declared. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will happily scarfed the rest of her sausage and Mulder was about to suggest they start moving again toward the stadium when a frisbee glided through the air and scuffed to the ground at their feet. Lily jumped off the wall and picked it up, looking around to find its owner, who was trotting toward them in droopy cargo shorts and an overlarge school shirt that said "I BLEED GREEN." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder shook his head as Lily pulled back and winged it back toward the guy, sailing it in a perfect arc into his waiting hands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The kid smiled at her, teeth and all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Nice arm!" the kid said, giving her one more charming look before trotting back toward his friends who were waiting further across the Diag that cut through the center of campus. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder glanced at Lily who was wearing a small but fading smile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stood, balling up the napkin and sausage detritus. He turned to Lily impulsively. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You want a beer?" he asked her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She almost blanched and gave him a queer look. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"A beer?" she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," he said, "you're a college kid now, no reason you shouldn't enjoy a cold one before a football game like all these other coeds."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily gave him a suspicious look just as Will piped up, "I want a beer." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No," Mulder said, cutting off any complaints with a sharp look and then he walked over to a fraternity tent and talked for a moment to the kid that was manning the keg. After a few words, he handed over a few bills of cash and returned to his kids, handing Lily a dripping plastic cup. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He took a sip of his own cup and inclined his head at his daughter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not the best," he said, while she took a tentative sip. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She smiled over the rim of the cup but kept her eyes on the ground. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tastes like college," she said, and Mulder couldn't help but smile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey Frisbee," Lily heard from several feet to her right. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stood up from the drinking fountain in a nook of the stadium in between lavatories, and used her wrist to wipe her mouth dry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guy who lost his frisbee at her feet while they were eating before the game was standing only yards away, a small cocksure smile on his lips. Lily tilted her head at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I thought that was you," he went on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded awkwardly and stepped away from the drinking fountain so the person behind her could drink. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think you're in the wrong stadium," he said, and when she looked at him in confusion, he smiled kindly and pointed at her shirt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She'd donned a UVA sweatshirt for the game out of a sense of loyalty or rebellion (she wasn't sure which, if she were being honest) and she only realized when they stepped onto campus how much it actually made her stand out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This isn't the UVA game?" she said mock seriously, "God, I took a left heading into Charlottesville and I guess I should have taken a right." The comment earned her a chuckle and a genuine smile. "Guess the extra ten hours in the car should have been my first clue."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guy took a few steps toward her and held out his hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Travis," he said by way of introduction, and she shook his hand politely. It was warm in hers, and his grip was firm but brief. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Lillian," Lily said, almost forgetting to introduce herself with her cover name. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's pretty," Travis said, and Lily could feel herself blushing, feeling awkward that it wasn't really her name. "So you go to UVA?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded. "Deferred for a semester while my folks moved here." Her father had told her to stick as close as she could to their actual stories when telling people their covers in order to keep it all straight. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Cool," said Travis. They stood there awkwardly for a moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I should get back to my seat," she said, "halftime's almost over."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>People were streaming back into the seating areas, and she could hear the marching band keeping tempo as they marched off the field.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Travis shoved his hands into his pockets and for a moment looked slightly bashful. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," he said, turning away and taking a few steps, before turning back. "Hey, you want to hang out sometime?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily thought to herself that just about anything sounded better than having to spend one more night at home playing Hearts at the dining room table. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sure," she said, and Travis pulled out his phone and handed it to her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She put in the number of the phone that Darlene had given her and felt only a little weird entering "Lillian" in the name box. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she handed Travis back the phone, he used his other hand to lightly touch her arm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey, it was nice meeting you," he said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You too," she smiled and wandered back to her seat, trying very hard to keep a smile off her face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So..." Scully started, not sure how to broach the subject, other than just to spit it out, "Lily wants to know if she can go 'hang out with a guy.'"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was sitting at the dining room table sipping on an iced tea, the dew of condensation slippery and cold on her fingertips. She was feeling pendulous and heavy, the high of the second trimester given way to the rolling agony of the third. Her husband, as she had suspected he would, looked suddenly aghast. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"She... what?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"She got asked out, Mulder, and would like to know if it was okay with us if she went."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>William came breezing through the kitchen then, opening up the fridge door and hanging in front of it, blankly staring at its contents, unimpressed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Pick something or don't, Will," Mulder said testily to his current youngest, "but please stop letting all the cold out of the fridge."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will grabbed a soda and stood while the fridge door closed on its own behind him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's Billy to you," he said, mocking insult, and made his way slowly out of the kitchen, staring at Mulder who affectionately reached out as he passed and messed his red curls into an orange soda froth on the top of his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You need a haircut," Mulder said, and Will lifted his nose, shaking his hair out with dignified hauteur. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So do you," the boy said and left the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully chuckled. "Don't take it out on him," she said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder shook himself and turned back to her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Take what out on him?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That your daughter is growing up and you're not ready. You look like you did the night she went to prom with Derek Smead."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder looked completely affronted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He didn't even come to the house! He just had the limo honk and she ran out the door. You didn't get any pictures! Who does that? No self-respecting gentleman. I honestly still don't believe he's a real person."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully chuckled again. "And she left him at the dance after an hour and took the limo with five friends to the Sonic drive-in. She's got a good head on her shoulders, Mulder."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know she does."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So what do you think? Is it safe to let her date?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't like it."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't ask if you liked it. I asked if you thought it was safe."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder blew out a raspberry. Scully knew that he was thinking the same thing she was -- they'd let Will hang out with a few new friends so long as he was careful. Lily arguably had more common sense by nature of her age (and her gender, thought Scully). She would take precautions and employ the minimal tradecraft Mulder and Scully had taught her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What do you think?" Mulder asked her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think she's 18 years old and we're lucky she even ran it by us. If she were away at school, she'd be making these decisions for herself."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder's shoulders slumped. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"As long as she's careful," he finally said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'll give her some condoms," Scully muttered, an offhand remark. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Scully</span>
  </em>
  <span>!" Mulder blanched.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I just wanted to see the look on your face," Scully laughed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder shook his head and turned to walk out of the room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully was still chuckling minutes later.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey Frisbee," said a voice from behind her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily turned to see Travis standing several feet away in the middle of the footbridge. He was wearing black flip flops, a pair of long khaki shorts and a navy blue polo shirt. His hair -- dark tousled waves, cut short but shaggy -- was poking in all directions out of a  university ball cap, which, she was relieved to see, was pristinely white without a yellowing band of sweat or scuzz. His face looked freshly shaved and he was smiling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey yourself," she said, and took a step toward him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He reached into his pocket as she approached and pulled out a ziplock sandwich bag, filled with a gritty grey substance. She took it with some hesitation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Is this... a bag of oatmeal?" she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He colored and put both hands up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Okay, so: I was going to bring your flowers, but then I thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>you know what would be cute? Flour</span>
  </em>
  <span>. So I went to our pantry and I'm looking at this giant bag of flour and I'm like</span>
  <em>
    <span> what the hell is she going to do with a giant bag of flour?</span>
  </em>
  <span> And then I saw the oatmeal and thought -- </span>
  <em>
    <span>well, we're meeting on the footbridge, we could feed the ducks</span>
  </em>
  <span>! ...So I brought you oatmeal. Bread is bad for ducks."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Despite the lengthy diatribe, Lily laughed. "It was nice of you to think of the ducks," she said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well," he said, and walked with her to the railing of the footbridge, which crossed the Red Cedar River. "The bag itself is multipurpose. If you think it'd be fun, I thought we could rent a canoe later and go down the river?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What does that have to do with the bag?" she asked, leaning over the railing and looking down into the tannin-tinted water. A cluster of ducks, trained to anticipate food, swam quickly toward them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We can put our phones in it," he said, leaning into her shoulder a little. "I myself have been through the gauntlet of canoe training at Camp Quitcherbitchin as a young lad, but you're an unknown quantity, Frisbee. What if you dunk us? I aim to save our electronics."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily laughed again, charmed despite herself. She opened the baggie and threw a handful of oats to the waiting ducks below, which scurried as fast as they could swim for the feast. Lily offered Travis some, and he took a handful and cast it out. They fed the ducks for a minute or so of comfortable silence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, Lily asked: "Camp Quitcherbitchin?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Travis smiled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sleep-away summer camp up north. I went every year. It's actually called Camp Nageesh, but some of the counselors were somewhat less than tolerant of complaints, so the campers called it Quitcherbitchin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily chuckled. "Canoes, huh?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Plus sailboats, swimming and archery. I refuse to divulge which I have a higher level of competency in, in case you're some kind of polymath with a competitive bent."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You aren't one of those guys who can't stand it when a girl is better than you at something, are you?" Lily asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Are</span>
  </em>
  <span> you a polymath with a competitive bent?” Travis grabbed another handful of oatmeal and threw it toward a mother with a brood of ducklings that were having trouble getting into the mix.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve got some game,” Lily said, arching an eyebrow that would have made her mother proud. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"In that case," he said, turning toward her. His eyes were a mossy green, like her father's. He  gave her a small smile, “I look forward to being outmatched."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well," said Lily, intrigued. She scattered out the last bit of oatmeal and, blowing some of the grit from the bag, put her phone into it and handed it to Travis for him to do the same. "Let's see what you're made of, Paddles."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxX</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We seem to be drifting a bit to starboard," Lily called over her shoulder. Travis had taken the backseat ("Do you mind if I steer?" he'd asked). They'd managed to board and push off okay -- the bored-looking livery attendant having given them minimal instruction, but held the craft as they both lifted themselves gingerly aboard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm aware of that," said Travis, his voice a little tense for the first time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You said you were steering," she teased him. They were rapidly making for the opposite shore of the river, the canoe swinging sideways with the current.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm aware of that too," he said back, and then a moment later, she felt the canoe sway radically, followed by a splash. She grabbed the side of the craft for dear life and then swung her head to look behind her. Travis had jumped out of the canoe and was now holding it by the triangle at the stern with one hand, paddle in the other; halting their momentum, which had been about to take them into a bramble of cedar branches hanging low over the water. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh my god!" Lily squeaked. "Are you okay? Did you fall?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I jumped," Travis said, "If you headed home with a rat's nest of cedar sprays in your hair, you might not go out with me again."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And they say chivalry is dead," Lily said, setting her oar down on the bottom of the canoe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Will</span>
  </em>
  <span> you go out with me again?" Travis said hopefully, and the smile he flashed her made her want to say yes, but instead she teased:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Too early to make that call."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This water is really cold, Lillian," he said, and turned, pulling the canoe behind him into the water upstream and back toward the livery. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It looks it," Lily said. "If I DO go out with you again, let's stick with something land-based, huh?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Travis threw a grin at her and kept trudging, clearly trying his best to keep the craft steady so she didn't fall in herself. She checked her pockets briefly for their phones, which she'd offered to hold on to, and watched him. The river was relatively shallow -- he was a tall guy and the water was only soaking the cuff of his shorts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your parents should call Camp Quitcherbitchin and get their money back, Travis," she said, canting her face up to the sun and closing her eyes briefly. She shrieked when the canoe suddenly lurched to one side. She grabbed the side and looked at her date, who had stopped and was wearing a mischievous grin. He was still wearing the dorky orange life jacket that they'd been required to don, and the whole situation made Lily start laughing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Laugh it up, fuzzball," Travis said, turning again to continue the trudge back to base. "I'll have you know that I learned how to canoe on a lake. I forgot to account for one variable."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The current?" Lily asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The current," he admitted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They made it back to shore and he helped her out of the canoe, explaining to the still benumbed livery worker that they wouldn't be back, but still throwing a soggy five dollar bill in the tip jar. After retrieving his flip flops from the bottom of the small boat, he offered to take Lily to the campus Dairy Store for ice cream. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your campus has a Dairy Store?" she asked him curiously. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This is Moo U, Lillian," he explained, steering her a few blocks from the river to a large brick building beyond the main engineering hall. "This street is Farm Lane. We have cattle."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once inside they reviewed the offerings, and Lily noticed that they had a flavor for every university in the Big Ten conference -- even their arch rivals. About which he announced, "I'll buy you anything but the Maize &amp; Blueberry. I like you, but even I have my limits."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once they had their cones (she with Boilermaker Brownie and he with Hoosier Daddy ("basically strawberry," he explained)), they settled onto a picnic table in the shade. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So," Travis said, licking a drop that had melted onto his knuckle, "why'd you end up deferring this semester?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily swallowed the bite in her mouth without chewing. They had prepared cover stories but she hadn't yet needed to use hers. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stick with the truth as much as you can</span>
  </em>
  <span>, said her father's voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"My dad got a job here and my mom is pregnant. She was on bedrest for a while and needed help."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Travis was looking at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to elaborate, but she didn't -- continuing to nervously lick her cone. After a long moment of waiting, he kindly plowed ahead, asking her about her major and telling her about his. He was a sophomore, from a town in the northern part of the state, and she found him inherently easy to talk to and interesting, and wondered, idly, if that was because he really was interesting or if she were just starved for company and attention. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When they finished up, they threw away their napkins in a nearby trash can and stood looking at each other, only a little awkwardly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So... “ Travis started, “still too early to make the call?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She smiled, remembering what she’d told him in the canoe about going out with him again. “I like your chances.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smiled back and she felt a little thrill. “Lillian, will you go out with me again?” he asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dry land stuff?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The driest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In that case, yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was still feeling the soft kiss he'd given her cheek hours later as she sat around the dining room table, fielding invasive questions from her father and trying to avoid her mother’s eye. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I will never stop praising my betas, you are the world.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>October 15, 2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The leaves were beginning to change outside the window; the maples turning russet, the birch yellow. Scully felt pendulous and gravid, the child in her belly more active than her previous two combined. Sleep was becoming difficult, but by day they’d fallen into a comfortable routine, safe and unmolested from the dangers that were beginning to feel as though they had never existed at all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stretched and left Mulder, half his face obscured by his pillow, his lips soft and pliant in sleep. A fresh pot of decaf awaited her in the kitchen, its automatic timer set by Mulder late last night. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The kids were still asleep, as far as she could tell -- she'd heard Lily come home well after midnight. She'd been up reading anyway when her daughter had popped her head into their bedroom door and whispered "I'm home." The girl had been wearing a small smile and Scully recognized the look. Lily was falling in love. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will shuffled into the kitchen sleepily, a palm rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He approached Scully where she stood at the counter and put an arm around her shoulder, leaning on her. He still smelled like the sleepy little boy who liked to cuddle into her side to watch nature shows when he was six. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Morning Mom," he said, taking a snuffly breath. He leaned down and rested his cheek against her head (he was almost as tall as Mulder, though still as skinny as a maypole). Scully wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him in closer. Affection from her kids was getting fewer and farther between now that they were active teenagers. She was determined to enjoy whatever she got. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Morning," she said, giving his back a little rub, "you're up early."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," he said on a yawn. "There's an open rink this morning and a couple of buddies are going. Is it okay if I join them?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully nodded. "Just make sure you tell your dad, too. Know the exits before you go and keep an eye on the crowd."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will squeezed her once and then let go, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter and holding up like James Bond. "Call me Double O Billy," he said and sidled back to his room off of Scully's bemused chuckle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She spent an hour catching up on email that had been routed through the Gunmen and Darlene -- coded messages that they interpreted and sent to her mother, sister and brothers. Melissa was giving her a hard time about not letting her fly to Europe (where she thought they were) to be her doula when the time came to give birth. She was tempted to send Byers to her sister's house to explain exactly what was happening, but rejected the impulse. Their mother -- the only person other than the Gunmen and the X-Files triumvirate at the FBI who knew their situation (though not their location for her own protection) -- would talk her down eventually. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder came padding up behind her as she closed the laptop and she felt a soft, drawn-out kiss on the side of her neck. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Morning," he mumbled into her skin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair, then turned to receive his kiss. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Morning," she said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I’ll be back shortly. I'm going to drop Billy off at the ice complex and then take Lil to campus -- she suddenly started liking football."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think it's the company rather than the sport," Scully said, turning in her chair to face him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"...I'm going to choose to believe my version," he said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully reached out and linked their fingers briefly. "Tell her to be careful," she said, "she's spending a lot of time out of the house."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder nodded and squeezed her fingers. "I will," he said, "and when I get back, I have a few ideas for how we can spend our child-free afternoon." He waggled his eyebrows at her and let go, backing out of the room like the charmer he was. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So why UVA?” Travis asked her. He had his head propped up on an elbow and his other hand was wrapped loosely around her foot, his thumb rubbing circles into her arch. She was on the couch in his dorm room and he was on the floor -- she’d been helping him study for mid-terms. They had been officially dating for five weeks and had seen each other at least every other day in that time. He’d introduced her to a couple of friends as his girlfriend. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” she asked. It was hard enough to concentrate while getting a foot massage, and she’d been staring at the index cards in front of her, trying to find a question that would stump him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you going to UVA? Brain like yours, you could have gone anywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever asked you why there.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Other than the in-state tuition?” She had told him that they’d moved from Virginia, but hadn’t elaborated.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Other than that,” he smiled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve always wanted to. When I was a kid, my dad would occasionally get called in to consult there and he would take me with him. I kinda fell in love with it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did your dad consult on?” he asked, “You don’t talk about your parents much.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Travis tapped her other leg, and she switched feet, silencing a groan when his knuckle hit a particularly sensitive spot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had purposely avoided mentioning her family much and debated how much was safe to share. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“UVA has a Department of Perceptual Studies,” she said, and she saw him tilt his head in question. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A department of </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Perceptual studies,” she said, smiling, “it’s a research group devoted to the investigation of phenomena that challenge mainstream scientific paradigms regarding the nature of the mind/brain relationship.” Travis stopped rubbing her foot and looked at her. She went on, further quoting her dad’s friend Dr. Stevenson: “Their mission is the scientific empirical investigation of phenomena that suggest that currently accepted scientific assumptions and theories about the nature of mind or consciousness, and its relation to matter, may be incomplete.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re shitting me,” he said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I shit you not.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What </span>
  <em>
    <span>kind</span>
  </em>
  <span> of phenomena?” He narrowed his eyes at her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She tried not to smile, “ESP, poltergeists, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, claimed memories of past lives.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And what did they want with your father?” he asked, sitting up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shrugged. “He’s a shrink,” she said, being deliberately vague.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is an accredited university?” He teased her. She kicked at him, and he ducked out of the way and laughed, then looked at her thoughtfully. “You know, I myself had an out-of-body experience with Trudy Carmichael under the bleachers when I was sixteen. Pretty sure I saw through time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily chuckled, then playfully challenged: “Do I need to worry about this Trudy Carmichael?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I doubt it,” he said, hanging his head, “I lost my virginity, and she lost my number. Not my finest hour.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A whole hour?,” Lily said wryly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“One way to find out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked at her then and she looked back. The moment was charged and sat in between them. The truth was, Lily was still a virgin. She and Travis had messed around, but fairly innocently, and she’d demurred on action below the waist/under the clothes. “I’m not waiting for marriage,” she’d told him a few weeks back, but she did want to wait for love. If only she knew what that felt like. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, Frisbee,” Travis said when she didn’t say anything, “please don’t take this as a negotiation tactic -- you’ve been clear on your limits and I totally respect that -- and with the full understanding that you don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> a reason, and you do you and all that -- but… do you want to talk about it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Talk about what exactly?” she asked, clarifying. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When I say ‘no pressure,’ I mean it,” he said, reaching out to squeeze her foot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily looked around his sloppy dorm room. There were clothes strewn about, though mostly out of the way— socks balled up near the laundry hamper, a sweatshirt hanging on the back of a chair. The wooden loft that held his bed was posted around the couch, made of flimsy-looking two-by-fours, and did not look like it could hold his weight, much less hers in addition, and remained untried (though Travis swore it had passed inspection). His desk was more fastidiously kept, a reflection of his mind, a structured order in the midst of chaos. He was kind and smart. His smile could make her insides go liquid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Honestly?” she finally said, “it’s my parents.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Super religious?” he asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had to stop herself from laughing. “No, it’s… My parents love each other. More than anyone I’ve ever known. Their love is like… romance film love. It’s practically written in the stars.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked at her contemplatively. “That’s a lot to live up to,” he said. “Is that what it is?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” she said, then, “no.” It was and it wasn’t. She didn’t know if there was a love out there that could compare, she suspected there wasn’t. Her real hang-up, and she hadn’t been able to get it out of her head since she found her father’s first wedding picture in their attic -- was that her father had obviously made a mistake. What if she did too? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She laughed, annoyed at herself. This wasn’t Regency England. Sex didn’t mean marriage. It didn’t even necessarily mean love. Still...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” she said, sitting up and grabbing for his class notes, “this bio exam isn’t going to take itself.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A sound woke her. Her hips were in agony and sleeping was difficult, so initially she was more annoyed than anything; she could rarely line up more than 90 minutes straight of deep slumber. And then she heard it again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She reached over, squeezed Mulder's bicep until she heard him sniff sharply awake and silently, pulled out the sidearm she kept inside her bedside table. Mulder, slipping out of bed without a word, pulled out his own gun and went to the door. He held up a hand, trying to tell Scully to stay back, but she shook her head angrily -- she would have his back whether he liked it or not. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he moved into the hallway, she stepped on the back of his heel and he ended up ramming his shoulder into the doorframe. He swore low under his breath. They were out of sync.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She watched as he put his head into the kids rooms as he made his way down the hallway, nodding at her that they were both accounted for. One more </span>
  <em>
    <span>thunk</span>
  </em>
  <span> from the living room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sidled up to the wall that led to the room and backed up against it. He mouthed </span>
  <em>
    <span>one-two-three </span>
  </em>
  <span>and they went in, but where she usually went low and he went high, this time they rammed shoulders and stumbled into the room. Mulder flicked on the light when she finally had her weapon aimed true. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There, sitting on a high bookshelf sat Apgar, her black tail swishing merrily. Maintaining eye contact, she swiped one more of the professor's knick-knacks off the shelf and onto the floor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder dropped his weapon and heaved a sigh, tipping his head back in frustration. "Fucking cat," he hissed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mission completed, Apgar jumped down with a thump and weaved a figure eight between Mulder's legs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"She must be hungry," Scully said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hangry was invented by cats," Mulder mumbled, reaching down to pet the cat with his free hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Our tactical coordination was atrocious," Scully said, flicking the light back off and holding her gun at her hip. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes," Mulder agreed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"When was the last time you went to the range?" she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's been months," he said tiredly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We're going tomorrow," Scully said. Mulder knew better than to argue. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxX</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were more than a few </span>
  <em>
    <span>Molon Labe</span>
  </em>
  <span> bumper stickers in the parking lot. Scully had to remind herself that they were in Michigan Militia territory. "Michitucky," she'd heard it called by a few guys at the Bureau. Nevertheless, she pulled up to the firing range with fire in her blood. She might not share their politics, but she would share their space, and show most of them up to boot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They signed in and bought ammunition. She got a few extra looks for being a visibly pregnant woman, but most of the men (and they were all men) who were at the range gave her begrudging looks of approval. Mulder stood, standing straighter and closer than normal, practically growling at anyone who got too close. She had to admit that his fierce protective nature was more than a turn-on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The range was outdoors -- different than what they were used to at Quantico. And where there were metal tables and dividers and state of the art equipment at the government facility, here it was all beat-to-shit plywood tables and sunburnt grass littered with shell casings and old ear plugs. They took the lane at the end. </span>
</p>
<p>They both loaded and checked their weapons, snugged earmuffs over their heads. </p>
<p>
  <span>"You want to go first?" Mulder asked, double checking the safety on his pistol and setting it on the table behind their station. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I can do that," Scully said, looking down at her Sig. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Care for a little wager?" her husband asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You can't afford me, Dr. Mulder," she said, admiring the still-lanky line of his physique.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He raised his eyebrows, and leaned back against the tall wobbly table. "Oh-ho," he said, "I suppose that depends on the currency." He had a smug look about him that she wanted to wipe off his face. She was a better marksman and more competitive than anyone gave her credit for. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What are you offering?" she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dishes?" he offered, "Laundry?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We had children for the menial labor," she challenged, "I can win this with one hand tied behind my back. Make it interesting for me."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He licked his lips. She had him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I liked the part about 'hands behind the back,'" he said, "Winner decides who wears the handcuffs."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're not exactly incentivizing this, Mulder."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had a flushed look about him; his nostrils flared. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Prove it," he said, and she felt a flush. Second trimester hormones could be a beautiful thing, she mused. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took her several rounds before she got back into the groove. It actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> been too long since she'd practiced and she was rusty. Considering their current situation, she ought not to let it happen again. Her last few rounds were dead center. Once her clip was empty, she cleared her weapon and stepped back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder's turn. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn't quite as out of practice as she was initially, which irritated her to no end. However, his fourth and fifth shots were a bit wide, and he ended around the edges. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he was clear, she stepped back up and took a bracing breath. She raised her weapon and fired rapidly; all her shots were center mass except the last two, which she swung up and finished with perfect shots to the head of the paper dummy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Mulder stepped forward for his turn, she nudged him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"How big would you say the back of the Yukon is?'" she asked casually. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His first three shots went wide. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>October 17, 2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mom?” Lily asked. There was a hesitancy in her voice that made Scully look up from where she was chopping vegetables for dinner. “How did you know you loved Dad?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully set the knife down and turned toward her daughter. “That’s a big question, Lil.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s a big question?” Mulder came breezing into the kitchen, shooting Scully an intrigued look. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully suspected something was up, but didn’t want to embarrass their daughter. Lily had always had an inquisitive streak and would occasionally come to Scully with problems or questions, but she was apt to clam up when pressed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lily was asking me about how I fell in love with you,” Scully said, trying to catch Mulder’s eye.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was the day she met me, no doubt,” Mulder said. He grabbed an apple out of the bowl on the counter and shined it on his sleeve before taking a snappy bite. “I’m catnip to the ladies,” he said around the mouthful. Lily smiled. Scully rolled her eyes.   </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Suddenly, I’m struggling to remember,” Scully said with mock derision. Mulder gave her a cheeky grin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Did</span>
  </em>
  <span> you know right away?” Lily asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully paused. “Not… Not </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span> away,” she said thoughtfully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily looked back and forth between her parents. “I guess it was a long time ago, huh.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Love in a time of sarsaparilla,” Mulder said dreamily. Scully shook her head and he caught her eye. “It wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> long ago, Lil,“ he went on, and Scully felt the low bloom of feeling that always accompanied a look from her husband. For as long as she lived, she would always remember the first time she felt it; on the Tooms case, when he’d hooked his finger in her necklace and pulled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “No, what I mean is… it was complicated,” Scully clarified.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily nodded and turned to her father. “You were married. Before Mom.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Mulder said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you love her? Your ex wife?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought I did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When did you figure out that you didn’t?” Lily asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When I met your Mom,” Mulder said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So what you felt with Mom…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“... was so much bigger than I was, that I couldn’t contain it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully felt her eyes well up. Mulder still sometimes had the ability to make her feel things all the way down to her toes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily smiled, but looked pensive. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But you thought you loved this other woman? I mean, enough to marry her?" she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder narrowed his eyes at his daughter. "What are you asking, Lil?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily shook her head, her cheeks pink. She grabbed a soda from the fridge and walked out of the room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh boy,” said Scully. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Mulder asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Travis,” said Scully. “She’s trying to figure it all out.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Jesus, he didn’t propose, did he?” Mulder asked. The look on his face was enough to make her laugh, but she held it in. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully turned fully to Mulder and leaned back against the countertop, crossing her arms in front of her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want to know what I think?” she asked. Mulder nodded. “She’s trying to decide whether or when to...” She made a vague gesture with her hands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder looked at her, still not understanding. Scully gave him the stare of the dotard husband. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mulder…” she said, glaring hard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Realization dawned and Mulder swallowed. “I should have had that boy killed,” he said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scully turned back to the vegetables she’d been chopping. “Let’s refrain from wetwork while we’re on the lam.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I make no promises,” he said, and slid up behind her, stepping in close and putting his hands on her waist.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I had the guys check him out by way of Darlene,” Scully said. “He is who he says he is. And he seems like a decent kid. Let’s let her navigate this on her own, huh?” She felt his fingers squeeze and then they drifted down to rest on her hips. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t like it,” he mumbled, and leaned down to rest his chin on her shoulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not supposed to,” she said. “But you do have to accept it, and trust that we raised her to make these decisions for herself.”  She remembered being nineteen and in college and in love for the first time. “You want to hear about Kevin McAvoy, my freshman year boyfriend?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder squeezed his fingers again and then started to turn her slowly toward him. She set down the knife on the counter and let him. His head was bent toward her and she felt his breath fan her face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he said, leaning even more into her personal space. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was his Little Red Corvette,” she said playfully, tipping her head back in challenge. He smiled, but she saw something rough pass through his eyes. “He’d put on Prince and --” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mulder leaned down and silenced her with a kiss. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In her room, Lily sat on the bed, the can of soda from the fridge sitting unopened on her bedside table. Condensation beaded on the side of it, sliding down silently to pool at the base, unnoticed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Crusher liked to sleep on her pillow, and had left a black felted indent in the feathers, which Lily brushed away and fluffed. She looked about the room. Not much about it spoke of the young woman who slept there and had for months; no posters on the walls, no pennants hanging or pictures of friends. It was a sterile guest room decorated with the mute tones of an unmarried 60-something and lately it had been making her feel like she wasn't even herself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stood and walked to the desk, the one place she deposited her things. Her wallet, the phone Darlene had given her that she rarely used and usually kept switched off. Her purse was half hanging off -- likely knocked into such a position by a passing cat -- and when she righted it, she noticed the picture that sat under it. The photo of her father and an unfamiliar brunette, who's face conveyed confidence -- almost a smugness -- and a certain charm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stared at the picture. And she wondered.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxX</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>October 20, 2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Lily glanced over her shoulder when she sat, feeling as though she were doing something illegal, something fraught. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one really used the computer labs anymore -- if you needed to, you could write an entire paper on your phone, though Lily found the practice ridiculous and immature. Nevertheless, there were one or two students sitting at the various desktops around the small library lab, and she checked to make sure no one was paying attention to what she was doing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She tried to be careful. She had told Travis that she was hoping to log into the university's network to prep for some of the classes she’d be taking at UVA next semester and so she was using his password and login information. She'd checked to make sure there were no cameras on the area where she sat, and that her back was to the one aimed at the larger area. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With a bracing breath, she logged on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was surprising what you could find with a simple Google search, and the commonwealth of Virginia's vital records office would send you a copy of any marriage certificate for a fee of $45. Knowing better than to use a credit card, she'd opted for a more in depth search, and found what she was looking for in the Daily Press -- the local newspaper of record in Newport News, Virginia. </span>
</p>
<p><span>It was a wedding announcement, complete with two pictures -- one, the same picture she'd found in her parent's attic and the other of a similar style -- of Fox William Mulder and Lauren Edith Williams, married on August 17th, 1988. According to the article, Lauren had been a recent graduate of Georgetown University and had been employed at Schuster</span> <span>and McClure, a PR firm in the District of Columbia. </span></p>
<p>
  <span>Lily looked at the new photograph on the screen before her. Her father looked so young. Only a few years older than herself. Lauren was pretty, had perfect posture, and was staring into the camera like a dare; her dress was all frills and white froth, the material of the dress ruched in large poofs at the shoulders, a crown of satin flowers around the lush brunette curls on her head. She looked like someone Lily wouldn't have dared talk to back in high school. She looked nothing like Lily's mother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lauren Edith Williams, she wrote down, and stared at the paper in front of her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>October 21,2018</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily was on the bus when she noticed him. It was his age that first drew her attention. Most everyone that rode this route (it went right into campus) was either a student or a professor, and something about him seemed the antithesis of scholarly. He had a sharp face, was dressed in loose clothing, a plain, black ball cap pulled low over his head. His knee bounced where he sat. She thought she could make out a tattoo curling onto the skin under the sleeve of his jacket. He could have been custodial staff for all she knew, but her parents had raised her to trust her instincts, and something inside of her pinged. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hadn’t so much as looked in her direction, but she reached up and pulled the cord that requested a stop anyway, keeping him in her periphery when the bus rolled to the next stop. She was five blocks further away than she would have liked -- she was supposed to meet Travis just off campus for lunch. The man didn't move or rise from his seat. Nevertheless, she ducked out of the back door and onto the sidewalk, shouldering her purse and pretending to look at her phone. Only when the bus left with the man still on it would she exhale. The bus had just started to roll forward when it chirped to a stop and the front doors opened. The man in the cap trotted down the steps and onto the sidewalk, glancing briefly at her before turning and walking slowly west. Adrenaline awash in her bloodstream, she turned east. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man had had a nondescript face. He was of average height and build, not someone you'd notice. She wracked her brain trying to remember when or if she'd seen him before, and had a hazy recollection of someone who might have been him: waiting outside of Travis's dorm when she'd come to visit him a couple days prior, or maybe even standing behind her in line at a coffee shop the day before. She should have been paying closer attention. Her parents had taught her to pay closer attention. Up until she'd done a search on her father and his ex-wife, she had. Lily silently cursed at herself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She looked at her reflection in the shop windows along Grand River Avenue, trying to catch a glimpse behind her. She caught movement, but there were plenty of other people walking up and down the sidewalk. She needed a better look. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She swung up the stairs of the Student Union when she came to it a moment later, remembering walking in with her brother and dad only the month before, and felt the sharp pang of guilt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she reached the top of the staircase, she stopped to retie her shoe, glancing back behind her as she did so. The man in the cap was there, and had paused a ways away, looking down at his phone. Lily finished fiddling with her shoe and casually walked to the door, holding it open for a girl who was coming out, her heart hammering in her chest as she did so. Through the large doorway was a wide set of stairs going both up and down. When the door closed behind her, she bolted down the stairs to her right. There were a number of study spaces and she could pass through each one fairly quickly -- the day was busy and there were students everywhere; if she was lucky she could get lost in the crowd. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She ducked through the main lounge and past the small coffee shop on the lower level, looking behind her. She saw nothing, but that didn't mean he still wasn't coming. Seeing the full racks of clothing in the Spirit Shop across the hallway, she went inside, bending down to pretend to look at a few items on the bottom shelf. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peering through underneath the hanging shirts, she watched as the man in the black cap came down the hallway outside of the shop and paused, turning toward it. Her heart leapt to her throat. He did a slow turn and then turned to keep walking. She kept her head down. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From the corner of her eye she caught her own reflection in the mirror outside the tiny dressing room -- she was wearing a bright blue shirt and her hair -- as bright and reflective as a stop sign, and always a part of herself she was fond of -- would give her away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stood, scanning the hallway outside the shop, and then she hastily pulled a green knit cap off a nearby shelf and pulled the tag off, shoving it over her head and tucking her hair up under it as quickly as she could. She grabbed a large tee shirt off the rack nearest her and took it plus the hat's tag to the counter, pulling some cash that her parents always had her carry out and plunking it on the counter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't need a receipt, thanks," she told the young woman helping her, and turned away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But what about your change?" the girl called after her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tip jar," she said, turning back and keeping her voice low. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once outside the store, she pulled the tee shirt over her head and made her way for the lower level exit that emptied onto campus. Seeing no one behind her, she took the steps out as fast as they would carry her and ran.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>XxX</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene narrowed her eyes at Lily, and opened the door. “Quickly,” she said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks,” Lily said, as Darlene let her into the house, peering around the block. “I didn’t want to use the phone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I get it,” Darlene replied as she ushered Lily into her kitchen, where Lily sank onto one of the stools that sat before the peninsula of the counter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You want a lemonade or something, kiddo?" Darlene asked, leaning forward against the counter herself and giving Lily an expectant look -- there was more to it than just polite hospitality.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, thanks," Lily said, feeling the weight of Darlene's gaze and her own guilt in equal measure. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did you do something stupid?" Darlene asked outright and Lily, taken aback, sat up straighter, but didn't answer, thus confirming Darlene's clear suspicion. "How bad?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think they found us." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene huffed a breath. "Elaborate," she said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I... I ran a search. A couple days ago, in the university library. I was careful, but maybe not careful enough."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What did you search?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"My dad's ex-wife."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene gave a low whistle. "Kiddo," she said, a statement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Have you considered just asking him about her?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily hugged herself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I have. I did. But… I wanted to know. For me. I don't want his version of this woman. I wanted to see for myself who she was. Is."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene moved to the window and peered out, lowering the blinds as she did so. "Did you find what you were looking for?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily once again felt a pang of guilt. She looked down. "Not really."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene moved around the counter to a sideboard table on the dining room side of the counter and began shuffling through a drawer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What makes you think they found you?" she asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think there's someone following me," Lily said, "I think maybe I’ve seen him a couple of times on campus, but I don’t know. I lost him and came here." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Just one someone?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily began to second guess herself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think so?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Darlene straightened from the sideboard she was holding a pistol. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Call your father right now, and tell him to get over here. Armed." Darlene's words were cold and calm. Lily's stomach dropped in her gut. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She reached for Darlene's phone, a relic from another time which hung on the wall, its cord coiled like a snake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene walked to the sliding glass door as she dialed the numbers, each tone sounding long and drawn out, Darlene pulled the long curtains closed with a snap. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dad?" Lily said, when Mulder answered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey Lil!" he sounded so relaxed, excited just to talk to her though he'd seen her that morning. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dad, I'm at Darlene's. She says to get over here. She said to bring your gun."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She heard his sharp inhale. “I’m coming,” he said, and then she heard a dial tone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Lily," said Darlene, walking over to her computer, which was booted up and sitting on her dining room table, cords snaking out of it and across the floor. She quickly typed hunt-and-peck with her right hand, the gun still clutched in her left. "I want you to go into the top right drawer in my dresser. In a small lockbox, code 9-10-9-3, you'll find an old Nokia phone. It should be fully charged. It’s untraceable. Do not turn it on. Take it. Put it somewhere safe -- your bra or your sock or underwear. Then get under my bed."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily walked to the hallway, her body on autopilot, her heart hammering and her blood roaring in her veins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darlene finished typing, clicked a few things with her mouse and then peeked an eye out the closed curtain toward the backyard, tapping the gun against the side of her thigh. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pausing in the hallway, Lily turned back to Darlene. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Is someone coming?" Lily asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Kid," Darlene said, shooting her a look, "they're already here."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>My betas: the wind beneath my wings.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> October 21, 2018 </em>
</p><p>It had been years since he'd had to employ tradecraft. Mulder pulled to the curb one block over and two blocks up from Darlene's. He triple checked that his Glock was loaded and dashed across the lawn of the house he'd parked in front of, running past the house and through the backyard, vaulting over a low fence and into another backyard. A black and white cocker spaniel came running at him, angrily barking, but lost its nerve when it got within biting range, opting to jog alongside Mulder as he ran through the yard and then down a sidewalk, eventually losing the dog as it reached the end of its invisible fence. </p><p>He slowed as he got to Darlene's block, scanning the street for any sign of an idling car, a criminal, an accomplice. He saw nothing but Scully's car -- the one Lily had lately been borrowing -- parked in Darlene's driveway, the hood still warm. </p><p>He was quietly approaching the side yard when a shot rang out, and then another. </p><p>Heart in his throat, Mulder vaulted over the small railing that bordered Darlene's small patio and skidded to stop in front of her sliding glass door which had been left open, the curtains fluttering outside on the breeze. He moved on tiptoes, waiting until the curtain blew away from the doorway, showing him a clear view into the house. He saw nothing. He entered, gun-first, his breath coming in adrenaline-laced gasps. </p><p>He heard a shuffle from further inside the house, then a low female curse.  </p><p>When he quiet-stepped his way past the kitchen counter and looked into the dining room, he saw Darlene slumped against the wall, a hand pressed to a blood-soaked shoulder. The arm that had been shot hung limply at her side, her fingers still curled loosely around the handle of a pistol. Her brow was pale, laced with sweat. They made eye contact. </p><p>Darlene held up a blood-soaked finger. One. "In the bedroom," she mouthed, and he nodded at her, moving cat-like on rubber-soled shoes, wishing he could feel the snub-nosed steel of Scully's Sig backing him up. </p><p>He could practically feel the movement on the other end of the hallway, the air tense as an execution chamber, the whispered rustling of clothing, the sharp smell of cordite still hanging in the air. </p><p>When he finally got to the bedroom doorway at the end of the hall, it took him a second to see the man in the room, crouched down next to the bed, the gun hidden behind his back. </p><p>"Come on out of there, princess," the man said, softly, like he was coaxing a hissing cat. </p><p>Mulder felt a blaze of red-hot anger, a parental rage so acute it felt like a tuning fork had pinged off his bones. </p><p>"Hey," he said, more of a hiss than a word, and the man's eyes went wide and his gun swung up just as Mulder fired, three times center-mass. The man fell back on a spray of blood. </p><p>Mulder threw himself to the floor on the other side of the bed.</p><p>"Lil, it's Dad," he said, "Look at me."</p><p>Lily was prone under the queen-sized bed, face-down on the other side, but she was looking at Mulder, wide-eyed, but apparently unhurt.</p><p>"Are you injured?" he asked calmly. </p><p>She gave a quick shake of her head and licked her lips, and Mulder could see that she was about to turn to look at what was left of her attacker. </p><p>"Come this way, baby," he said, holding out a hand to her while she shimmied slowly toward him. When she finally reached him, her hands were like ice. He pulled her the rest of the way out and onto her feet, where she stood, dazed, touching her hair and getting her bearings. He moved his body in between her and the dead man on the floor on the other side of the bed, ushering her quickly out of the room and down the hallway. </p><p>When they got to the dining room, Darlene was breathing quickly but was still conscious, and she tossed a keychain at Mulder, which he caught one handed. There was a smear of blood on the ring, which he wiped on his shirt.</p><p>"Silver CR-V, two blocks east," Darlene wheezed, "don't stop for anything."</p><p>Mulder, not heeding her advice, stopped by where the phone hung on her kitchen wall and dialed 911, stretching the cord as long as it would go and pressing it into Darlene’s hand. He pressed his gun into the other and kissed her cheek. </p><p>“Thank you,” he said seriously, then grabbed a shocky Lily by the hand, pulled her through the theater-curtain of the breezy drapery and out into the daylight.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>They'd had go-bags packed as a matter of course -- Scully had thrown them into the back of the CR-V in the parking lot of the defunct Family Video where Mulder told she and Will to meet them. </p><p>He’d leaned over and thrown open her door for her as Will swung into the backseat. He was driving before she’d even buckled her seatbelt. </p><p>“Plan C?” Scully asked. Mulder had been checking the rearview mirror more than he was checking the road. He nodded once, curtly. “We should head East,” she went on. “If they’re tracking our phones, let’s let them think they know where we’re going before we lose them.”</p><p>“On it,” Mulder said, merging onto the highway.  </p><p>After a few miles, the tension in the car eased slightly. </p><p>"Hey Dad?" said Will from the back seat. Mulder looked in the rear view mirror and connected eyes with his son. "What about the cats?" the boy asked.</p><p>Mulder thunked his head back against the head rest. "We'll figure it out, bud."</p><p>"Travis could probably do it," Lily volunteered shyly. </p><p>"How do we know Travis wasn't the one who tipped them off to our location?" Mulder asked, barely keeping a rein on his anger and fear.</p><p>"Mulder," Scully admonished quietly from beside him. She peered back at their daughter who had tears in her eyes. </p><p>"Because it was me," Lily quietly, whose face then crumpled. </p><p>Mulder slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over hard to the shoulder of the highway, gravel and dirt spitting out from under the tires. The cars that had been behind them honked liberally as they flew by. He craned his neck back at his daughter before the car had stopped moving. </p><p>"What?!" he said. </p><p>"I -- I," she started, then took a deep breath and continued, "I did a search in a university computer lab a few days ago. Then someone started following me. I lost him-" </p><p>Mulder and Scully both interrupted her at the same time. </p><p>"-What did you search-" "-And you didn't tell us-"</p><p>She looked between the two of them, clearly trying to figure out who to answer first. Finally, to Scully she said, "I wasn't even really sure he <em> was </em> following me. And I didn't want to scare anyone. I did what you taught me to do -- I shook him and then I went to Darlene. I didn't want to lead him home." Scully reached back and put her hand over her daughter’s, who clutched back at her desperately. "And now Darlene might be dead!"</p><p>"I think Darlene is going to be okay, Lily," Mulder said. She would have reached out to the Gunmen first thing, who would have sent someone in to protect her. “I called 911 -- she was shot in the shoulder --" he looked to Scully, passing off the conversational baton. </p><p>"Was she conscious when you left her?" Scully asked. Lily nodded, sniffing. "Shoulder gunshot wounds are easily survivable. I'm sure she'll be okay,” Scully ‘finished, sounding more sure than she felt.</p><p>Mulder took a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel like a vice. </p><p>"Lily, what did you search?" he finally asked, his voice as calm as he could make it.</p><p>The girl sniffed again and looked up. "You," she simply said, looking at her father. </p><p>Scully looked at Mulder and could feel his heart breaking for his daughter from where he sat. He sighed heavily.</p><p>“Pass up your phones,” he finally said, “everybody.” </p><p>The kids complied, handing over their phones to their mother. Mulder looked at Scully, then signaled and pulled back on the expressway when there was an opening.  “Can you pop the SIMs?” </p><p>“Yes,” she answered. </p><p>“Good,” he said. “Think you can make a Faraday bag, Scully?”</p><p>“What’s a Faraday bag?” Will asked. </p><p>Scully was studying the phones, looking for the SIM trays on the side of each device. “It’s an enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields,” she said without looking up. </p><p>She looked to Mulder and smiled briefly. “I’ll only need a few supplies.”</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Mulder pulled the ball cap low over his face and donned a pair of sunglasses. While the car was filling up, he went inside the gas station and grabbed a small shopping basket, filling it up with junk food and bottles of water, aluminum foil from the small kitchen section, batteries. On his way to the register, keeping his face down to avoid the cameras, he grabbed one large foil-lined bag of potato chips and plunked them all on the counter, paying for the lot in cash. He muttered a thank you as the cashier handed him the plastic bag of loot, and he whisked through the door of the station, pulling out the large bag of chips as he made his way back to the silver CR-V. He wordlessly handed Scully all the food but the chips as she was resecuring the gas nozzle and closing the car's gas hatch. Mulder tore open the bag of chips, dumped the contents in the waste bin next to the gas pump and jumped in the car with the empty bag. He pulled out of the gas station so quickly that the tires chirped on the asphalt. </p><p>"Mulder," Scully said shakily, a warning: calm down.  </p><p>Three miles later on Southbound I-69, he pulled illegally into a utility pass-through. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone, and handed it to his wife.  </p><p>“Last one?” he asked, and she nodded. She had the other three phones up on the dash, their SIM cards already removed. </p><p>She went through the supplies he’d gotten at the gas station and looked critically at the empty potato chip bag. </p><p>“Do you have what you need?” </p><p>She nodded. Five minutes later, her work complete, she looked up. </p><p>“Done,” she said. </p><p>He took the bag from her, dropped the phones inside and shoved it into the console. They turned north. </p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Mulder pulled the CR-V to a stop when a sapling in the middle of the two-track made further driving impossible. </p><p>"End of the road, guys," he said, and cut the engine. "Get your bags out of the back," he said to his children, "Will, I want you to carry your mom's."</p><p>"'Kay," said his son, and made his way to the trunk. </p><p>Lily had been quiet for hours. He moved around the car to help Scully out and she gave him a look. <em> Give her something to do </em>. He nodded. </p><p>He pulled the handwritten map that Lauren had given him out of his back pocket and handed it to his daughter. "I'm going to stick with your mom," he told her, "see if you can suss out this map."</p><p>Lily nodded and looked around to orient herself. When he came back to Scully's side, she gripped his arm and took a bracing breath. Alarmed, he bent his knees to try to look into her eyes. </p><p>"Scully?" he said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice, "you okay?"</p><p>She nodded after a moment and gave him a toothless smile. </p><p>"Just… feeling heavy today," she said.</p><p>Moments later, Lily led the way and he lifted a low hanging hemlock branch for his wife to pass beneath. He tried not to think too much about how slowly she moved through the duff. </p><p>XxX</p><p>When they broke through the clearing, the autumn light was waning, and the shadows lay long upon the ground. They were all of them covered from the knee down with burrs and leaf detritus, and though the cabin looked low and shabby and damp, it did offer the eyes a break from the monotony of forest, and for that it was a welcome sight. </p><p>It was a small structure, the original part of it a log cabin hewn from large hardwoods, with an addition on the south side of what looked like a combination of particle board and tin that had been at one time painted red. The corners of the addition -- held up by several two-by-fours nailed together -- did appear to have been chewed on at shoulder height, supporting Lauren's handyman's assertion that moose had been here. </p><p>Above the door of the main cabin, which was secured with a latch and rusted padlock, was nailed a grey and weathered sign, hand carved with "Camp Hi-Early."</p><p>"Come on guys," he said, taking Scully by the elbow and digging his other hand deep into his pockets to pull out the key Lauren had given him months back in a polished high rise in DC. It felt like a lifetime and another world ago.</p><p>It took several tries with the key before he was able to unhinge the creaking lock, and he then had to drive a shoulder hard into the door, where the wood had expanded in the damp and stuck to the doorframe. It knocked back into the interior wall and he finally stumbled inside. </p><p>It was dark and smelled of old mold layered with the pungent brine of red cedar — the wood of which was frequently used in construction to ward off vermin. Mulder hoped it had worked. The floor was an old grey linoleum scattered with grit and bits of leaves which had blown in from the small crack at the base of the door. To the right of the doorway stood a tall newer looking gas can which Mulder found was nearly topped off when he bent down to pick it up. Next to it was a long black Maglight which he handed to Scully. He held up the gas can as she stepped into the cabin, her face one of skeptical distaste. </p><p>"I'm going to go fire up the genny," he said, as she clicked on the flashlight and shone it into the cabin's dark corners. </p><p>The generator, out back on the far end of the cabin near the outhouse, rested on a sturdy-looking wooden platform, and appeared to have been serviced at least somewhat recently. He was more than a little relieved when it started after only three tries. </p><p>When he came back into the cabin a moment or two later, Scully already had the overhead lights switched on, and was having the kids pull tarps and coverings off of the bunks in the cabin's addition. She was standing in front of a cedar cabinet, cautiously sniffing at several wool blankets that were folded within it. </p><p>"There are some mice droppings," she said, nodding toward the interior of the space, "but it's not bad. Needs to be swept and given a good scrubbing, but I think we'll survive."</p><p>Mulder nodded at her and eyed the pot bellied stove that took up most of one corner. There was a chill and it lent the cabin a dank, depressing air. The sooner they got the place warm, the better. </p><p>"There's a woodpile out back," he said, "see if you can get the kids to bring in a few armfuls."</p><p>She nodded brusquely and then braced her hand against the cabinet for a moment. </p><p>"I'm fine, Mulder," she said when she sensed his concerned gaze. "It's nothing." </p><p>When she appeared to move about normally, Mulder peered around the cabin as the kids headed out for the wood pile. The walls were mostly bare, but for a handful of cheap Kmart picture frames with fuzzy black and white stills of men dressed in flannel and Stormy Kromers standing next to the rigor-stiff remains of various woodland creatures. There were several mounted deer heads, most looking glassy-eyed and mangey, but for one 12-pointer on the far wall who had a dusty, archaic looking rifle balancing on his impressive rack. In the kitchen, on the wall above the yellowed, bowing countertop hung one color picture -- the patina of the paper suggested it had been developed sometime in the mid to late 70's -- of Clio with her arm around the shoulder of a raven-haired, gap-toothed child, who Mulder instantly knew to be Lauren, whose hand was resting around the barrel of a rifle that was taller than she was. It looked to be the same firearm decorating the taxidermy. </p><p>Scully gave a sniff from over his shoulder and he turned to see her looking at the piece. </p><p>"Think it still shoots?" she asked. </p><p>The thing probably hadn't been cleaned in thirty years, inside or out. </p><p>"Think I'll stick with your Sig," he replied. Though his wife had better marksmanship, she'd handed over her service weapon when they'd arrived, deferring to his instincts and the fact that he was currently more fleet of foot. Mulder had left his own weapon at the scene at Darlene's, pressing it into her hand with a quick kiss to her cheek and an inadequate thanks. </p><p>He had carried in not only his own pack of clothes and toiletries, but also the meager supplies that they'd picked up in a small IGA outside of St. Ignace, just over the bridge to the Upper Peninsula. It was mainly powdered Lipton soups and Ramen, crackers and Gatorade mix; lightweight supplies that were high in calories and easy to store and make with water from the hand pumped well just outside the cabin's door. He kept them in the zipped duffel he'd carried them in and left it on the small counter that served as the cabin's kitchen. </p><p>The kitchen itself was meagerly supplied with a couple of old pots and pans, plastic cups with the scratched and faded visage of Bozo the Clown on them. Thin, hand-me-down plates and bowls. A colander. A ceramic pitcher. In the middle of the countertop, in front of a small window was a large porcelain basin that served as the sink, under which, behind a faded gingham curtain sat an old, gummy bottle of dawn, a gallon of generic white vinegar and an old metal pail. </p><p>Reconnaissance completed, it took him several minutes to figure out how to open the flue on the pot bellied stove and he built a small fire, hoping nothing had built a nest or somehow otherwise stopped up the small metal chimney. When it seemed to draw okay, he added more wood -- which was well seasoned and fairly dry, considering -- until he had a roaring fire. The wood popped and crackled as it burned, cheerful.</p><p>XxX</p><p>“The seat in the outhouse is fucking freezing,” Lily said as she came in the doorway.</p><p>Dawn had barely broken and the light outside the cabin was cold and gray. It had been a long night. The woods surrounding the cabin weren’t quiet, and everyone was jumpy, having slept fitfully on the creaking twin beds in the bunk room. </p><p>Mulder looked to Scully, who normally would have at the very least leveled a firm look at their daughter for language, but Scully merely sat there, and when she caught him looking at her, said:</p><p>“It is, though.”</p><p>By noon, cabin fever had set in. They’d played Hearts with a deck of cards Scully had found in the kitchen with a Joker sitting in for a missing five of spades. They’d eaten lunch. Mulder had massaged Scully’s lower back when she complained of pain. The minutes passed like hours. </p><p>By the time it was early afternoon, Will had found a long stick in the trees near the cabin, the end curved like a hockey stick, which he was using to hit pinecones into the side of the structure, each tatty thud further fraying already scattered and jumpy nerves. Mulder finally had to go outside and tell him to find two saplings to aim through because one more thunk into the wall outside where the rest of the family sat and Lily was likely to try to break the stick over her knee and impale him with it, and as far as Mulder and Scully were concerned, no jury would convict her. </p><p>Boredom was getting the better of them. Will sat on a bed in the bunk room, running the improvised hockey stick round and round though his fingers in a circle on the floor. Scully fitfully napped, Lily sulked and cracked her knuckles. Even Mulder felt the occasional pang for the dopamine hit of a checked handheld screen. </p><p>Mulder stood. </p><p>"I'm going to run out to the road," he said, "try to check in with the guys."</p><p>Scully, who was laying on her side on a cot that Mulder had pulled closer to the potbellied fireplace just for another place to sit, opened her eyes. </p><p>"Are you sure that's wise?" she asked. </p><p>"I'm sure the guys have buried the signals on our phones by now," he said. "And I should check in with Lauren -- it's been a while."</p><p>"Be careful, Mulder," Scully said, and gave him a significant look. </p><p>He nodded, looking at her a long moment before looking away.</p><p>Scully had dark smudges under her eyes -- she had slept worse than anyone, the old mattresses dipping her abundant hips into uncomfortable positions. She had reached the stage of pregnancy where everything was swollen and sore. Mulder couldn't think of a more miserable situation for her, his chest clutching in sympathy.</p><p>"Can I come?" Will piped up suddenly from where he sat. </p><p>"Me, too?" asked Lily, who was looking wan and morose from the small dining table in the corner. </p><p>"I want one of you to stay with your Mom," Mulder said, looking at Will when he said it, who got the message and smiled sweetly at his mother. </p><p>"I'll stay," he volunteered. </p><p>Lily shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans as she rose and shuffled to the door. Once they were outside, she turned to him, but didn't make eye contact. </p><p>"Lil," he said, anticipating what she was about to say, "we'll check on Darlene."</p><p>His daughter pulled her lips into her mouth and nodded, sniffing once. </p><p>XxX</p><p>Mulder pulled the phone out of their improvised Faraday bag and stood on the side of the road, turning it on on a surge of adrenaline. The guys would have known to scrub the phones and whatever voodoo that was needed so that they couldn’t be traced, but he still felt anxiety. Lily stood beside him, hugging her arms around herself. It was October and cold, and she was only wearing a long sleeved tee shirt. </p><p>Once the phone was booted, he looked at the screen. There was hardly a signal, which he supposed wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He walked up and down the road a few paces to see if the signal got any better, but it only ever got worse, losing bars completely. Finally, he stopped and dialed the number for the Gunmen that he’d memorized for emergencies. There was a click after only one ring, and then a buzzing sound. Finally, he heard Langly’s voice, though it was garbled from the bad signal. </p><p>“Talk to me,” Langly said. </p><p>“Are we clear?” he asked. </p><p>The first few words of Langly’s answer were cut off. “--s okay, you’re good. Do not relay your loca--” he was cut off again. </p><p>“What’s the status of Melvin’s sister?” he asked, cutting his eyes to Lily. </p><p>“--going to be okay.” </p><p>He nodded at Lily and gave her a reassuring smile, at which point Lily visibly relaxed. </p><p>“Ears to the ground,” Mulder said, “what are they hearing?”</p><p>“--put -- unconfir -- danger. If you -- wife -- do not --” </p><p>The call dropped. Frustrated, Mulder squeezed the phone in his hand and walked further up the road, his daughter tailing him like a puppy. He tried a further three times to connect back to the Gunmen without success. He was about to turn off the phone again when he realized that he owed Lauren a check in. He decided to try to text her instead, hoping it would go through. </p><p><em> Plan C </em> , he wrote, <em> FM </em>. He pressed send. The phone’s ‘sending’ message shone for at least thirty seconds when he thought he heard the approach of a car over the rise to the west. He quickly shut off the phone and threw it back into the potato chip bag, grabbed Lily’s elbow and they darted into the trees lining the road. </p><p>A minute later a truck roared past, pulling a trailer nattily painted in homemade camouflage.</p><p>“Dad?” Lily whispered from where she was crouched next to him when the truck was long gone. </p><p>“It’s fine,” Mulder said, standing. Lily rose next to him. “Lots of sportsmen up here. It’s almost hunting season.”</p><p>They trudged along the two-track as they headed back to the cabin and Mulder put the bag with the phones back into the glove box as they passed the car. Before they left it, Mulder asked Lily to help him cover up the reflective lights and license plate with brush. That finished, they walked on in silence.</p><p>They weren’t far from the cabin when he finally spoke.</p><p>“You know none of this is your fault, right?” </p><p>"What?" she asked, as though she didn't hear him. </p><p>He stopped walking and so did she, looking at him in question. </p><p>"None of this is your fault, Lily."</p><p>"I don't-"</p><p>"Lily."</p><p>Realization started to dawn on her and he saw tears form in her eyes. </p><p>He said it again: "None of this is your fault, Lily. Darlene, being at this cabin, none of it. Your mother and I don't blame you, and no matter what happens, we never will. None of this. Is. Your. Fault."</p><p>With that, tears fell from her eyes and she launched herself at her father, pressing her head into his chest and squeezing him around the middle tightly. "It's okay," he whispered into her hair, brushing it back from her forehead. Her breath hissed out from her as though from a release valve. He held her for a very long time.</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Betas, did you ever know that you're my hero?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> October 23 </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Scully was in labor. At least, she thought she might be. She hadn’t been sure, but in the last hour she was now more certain, though her contractions were eons apart. The timing was obviously less than ideal. She was two weeks short of her due date, and when they had pulled off the state highway to the road that led to the cabin, she began hoping for a miracle -- what kind of miracle, she wasn't sure -- that the cabin was spacious and clean and up to date with a fully staffed Labor and Delivery wing? That someone would come and whisk them away to safety? She worried about preeclampsia, prolonged labor. She worried she might need a C-section. She worried she wouldn’t be able to do it.</p><p>In Virginia, the mid-morning sun would light up their bedroom like a hot set, dust motes floating through the spotlight of the shine and even the greys that now peppered Mulder’s temples would be lost in the chocolate ganache luster of his hair as he laid in their bed. That was where she wanted to be, laboring to bring this new child into the world -- in the bright, soft light of their bedroom, with Mulder kneading the labor pain out of her back as she kneeled on all fours in the rumple of their king-sized bed. Not here. Not amongst the pines and the cawing of crows. Not in a little bed in a musty-smelling shack with the pictures of people on the wall that were unfamiliar and long dead. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen at all.</p><p>William was again fiddling with his improvised hockey stick; he always fiddled with something when he was anxious, a nervous tick picked up when he was little. She remembered him crawling into bed with them when he was five, a thunderstorm outside or a bad dream. He would tuck himself into Scully's side, and she'd tilt her head until her cheek rested against the hard round of his skull, breathing in the inky smell of his wiry hair, his compact little body tight against her. He had Mulder's long, elegant feet and piano playing fingers, and he would play with the buttons on her pajamas and suck his thumb and rub his face into Moo, the stuffed cow, the fur of which was worn and well-loved and smelled like his sleepy breath. How she'd longed for those days as the kids had gotten older. How she worried for this new little one coming into this particular world. </p><p>Evening was falling outside, the long light through the pines running shadows through the small windows of the cabin. </p><p>"Will, can you throw another log in the stove?" she asked. The cabin was cooling quickly and Mulder and Lily would be back at any time and probably chilled right through. </p><p>"Sure, Mom," said Will, setting down his stick and moving to the potbellied stove, slipping on the worn and singed oven mitt that one needed to wear to grab the handle to open the small door. He threw in a couple pieces of wood until the flame began to roar, licking up the black sides of the feed chamber. He closed it and gave her a smile, looking at her kindly. "Are you okay, Mom?"</p><p>She could feel what she took to be a contraction coming on slowly; they were still pretty far apart and not yet at the stage where she would disappear inside of herself to get through the pain.</p><p>"I'm-" </p><p>The door to the cabin opened then, and Mulder and Lily stumbled in, rubbing their hands together and griping about the cold. </p><p>Mulder came over to her and kissed her forehead gently, his lips cool from being outside. He smelled of fresh air and woodsmoke and rubbed his hands up and down her arms once. </p><p>"How'd it go?" she asked, ignoring the growing pressure on her womb.</p><p>"Okay," Mulder gave her a clipped smile. "I got in touch with the guys, but the connection was terrible. Looks like Darlene will be okay. Otherwise, not much information was relayed one way or the other. We'll try again tomorrow."</p><p>She nodded at him. By tomorrow they would likely need to request some kind of medical help. Not sure who they could contact or who they could trust, she tried her best not to despair. She thought of her first labor, with Lily, how Mulder had stayed up with her all night. The drive to the hospital in the dark hours -- the forgotten sandwich on their dashboard, his face and how it looked each time a streetlight flashed upon it. </p><p>William's labor had been long and scary -- full of complications and made worse by the fact that Mulder wasn't with her. But she remembered when they placed the baby on her chest, the warm little bundle of him so much heavier than he looked. She remembered how his skin was still purple and mottled. She remembered his serious little eyes and his sweet grasping hand, the damp curled wisp of his marigold hair. </p><p>She had gotten through that. She could get through this. With Mulder beside her, sometimes she felt as if she could do anything. </p><p>"I'm going to heat up some water," Mulder said, and she could hear him trying to infuse his voice with optimism, "make some soup."</p><p>She smiled at him. Nodded. She knew she should eat something and try to get some rest. There was still time, she told herself, there was still time. </p><p>XxX</p><p>She had actually fallen asleep. After eating a bit of the soup, she'd lain down and closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was met with nearly absolute darkness. Only the glow from the small window of the feeder door on the stove issued forth any light, but it was paltry and she could still barely see her hand in front of her face. </p><p>She was alone in the small bed and could hear the heavy breathing of Mulder and their children from the bunk room. He must have decided to leave her be when she'd fallen asleep, and she was grateful. The tightening pain around her middle had awoken her and it squeezed until she gasped. It took her by such surprise that she almost didn't hear the scraping at the door of the cabin, the thump that followed. </p><p>She looked up just as the door to the cabin burst inward and she was blinded by a flash of light. She heard the action of a pistol cocking back. </p><p>“Do not move,” said an accented voice laced with venom. </p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Lily didn’t know what was happening. </p><p>She awoke in darkness and chaos -- to the scraping of furniture in the beam of a flashlight, her father's harsh swearing and the smell of apocrine sweat. </p><p>"Dad?!" called Will, and Lily heard the harsh sound of a blow to a body followed by a grunt. More scraping, the sound of a struggle and then a gunshot rang out. Lily jumped so high, she found herself standing.</p><p>“Mulder!” her mother cried. </p><p>“Everyone okay?!” from their father.</p><p>"Shut UP," hissed a voice thick with accent, and everything stopped. The beam of light finally stopped swaying and fell on her father, who was wincing and touching a hand to his lip, which he pulled away to look at -- the crimson smear of blood like neon in the light. </p><p>The generator hummed on the other side of the wall, the only sound in the silence that followed. And then Lily heard a scrape and the overhead light was switched on, blinding her momentarily. When she pried her eyes open again, she took everything in; a grizzled man with a long nose and close-set eyes stood in the open doorway of the cabin, his cheek red and swollen, pointing a gun at her father, her mother just behind him, sitting on the cot near the stove. Her brother was standing just beside where she stood in the bunk room, his eyes wide in shock. </p><p>The gunman turned to look in her direction, then nodded his head at her parents. </p><p>"Both of you," he said, "in here, now."</p><p>She and Will, both a bit dazed, made their way silently to their parents, where their father reached an arm out and pushed them behind himself. </p><p>“You guys okay?” he whispered. </p><p>"Weapons and keys," the gunman said. Their parents traded a look, and Mulder moved the few steps to the kitchen, where Scully's Sig was sitting on the kitchen counter. The gunman took a step closer to them all and aimed his gun directly at Will, who inhaled sharply. </p><p>"Easy," her father said, and ejected the clip from Scully's gun and handed them both to the man who examined the pistol closely before shoving the gun and clip into a pocket in the back of his pants. </p><p>“Keys.”</p><p>Mulder handed them over.</p><p>"Where's the other gun?" the man asked. </p><p>"Left it downstate," Mulder said, raising both hands. "That's all we have."</p><p>“Lift up your shirt,” the man said, and Mulder did as he asked, turning around to show he wasn’t armed. </p><p>The man narrowed his eyes and then looked about the room, his gaze coming to rest on the rifle that was perched on the deer rack on the far wall. </p><p>"Get that down," the man said, "bring it over here."</p><p>Mulder, moving slowly, carefully and purposefully pulled one of the old chairs from the small dining table over to the deer head and attempted to lift the rifle from where it rested. It wouldn't move. He pulled harder. </p><p>"It's wired on," he said, "it won't budge."</p><p>The gunman took a moment and moved his jaw around, assessing. </p><p>"Then leave it," he finally said, "that thing hasn't fired in twenty years." </p><p>Mulder stepped down off the chair and moved back, putting himself, once again, between his family and the gunman, who glanced at his watch. Then, keeping his eyes on the Mulder family, reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. He fiddled with it for a moment and then swore. </p><p>Her father, in his most soothing voice, said, "There's no signal here."</p><p>The man shoved the phone back in his pocket. "Doesn't matter," he said, checking his watch again. Then, he pointed the barrel of the gun briefly at the dining table. "You three, sit there." </p><p>Mulder didn't move, and Lily and her brother both looked to him. Lily didn't want to do anything without his okay, and the moment was tense as a piano string. </p><p>"Mulder," her mother finally said shakily. Her father looked to his wife and she looked back. Finally, Mulder moved to sit at the dining table, and Will and Lily followed, gingerly sitting down. </p><p>The gunman took a step toward Scully and Lily felt her father tense next to her. </p><p>"So," the man said, pointing at her pregnant belly, "the miracle child." He pronounced it like <em> meericle </em>. "You have been a hard woman to find."</p><p>Scully said nothing. </p><p>"What's your name?" Mulder asked from the table, drawing the gunman's attention. </p><p>The man stood for a moment, his eyes blank. Finally, he said, "Luis."</p><p>“Luis, what are your intentions for my family?”</p><p>The man looked at him. “For now, nothing. For now, we wait.”</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX </p><p>The wind picked up as the day wore on, rattling the windows and pushing at the outside of the cabin in a dull roar. She had not had a contraction for an hour, and the last few had been dull. Perhaps it was Braxton Hicks after all.</p><p>She thought how fitting it was to be at a hunting camp when, for the last nine months, she’d felt like prey. Every day the fear would work at her, wending its way through her veins like ichor.</p><p>The man who held them, Luis, didn’t talk much. He sat by the door, silent and grave, with one hand wrapped around the handle of his Glock. He would check his watch occasionally and scowl. Every now and then he would pace. Eventually he let the kids go into the bunk room, obviously not thinking them much of a threat. He was waiting for backup of some sort, and the only thing Scully thought was at least it was buying them time. Time for what, she wasn’t sure. </p><p>Scully looked at her children through the room’s doorway, sitting next to each other on a bunk and was reminded of the old adage: “to have a child is to give fate a hostage.” </p><p>"Luis, do you have children?" Scully asked the man before her, her voice like a bell peeling through the silence of the cabin. She could tell she had surprised him. He looked at her for a long moment but did not answer. He looked away. </p><p>She thought perhaps if she connected with him he might be reasoned with, but he was cold, his mood foul. </p><p>Scully reached for Mulder’s hand and held on tight.</p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>The intense heat coming off the wood burning stove in the main area of the cabin did little to heat the bunk room. Lily and William sat together on one of the lower bunks, taking solace in both proximity and shared warmth. </p><p>The man, Luis, stood in the center of the room. His nose was bleeding less now, but his face was swollen and red, and he seemed to get angrier with every passing minute. </p><p>Their mother was standing, leaning against the back of one of the kitchen chairs. She looked miserable. Their father was sitting in one of the other kitchen chairs, eyes swinging perpetually back and forth between the gunman and his wife. He was as tense as a coiled spring, and Lily worried he would make a move that would get him shot. Luis still had the gun trained on him. </p><p>In the tumult of the attack at Darlene's house and their ensuing escape north, Lily had forgotten about the cell phone that Darlene had given her. When she found it later, she left it off and shoved it deep into her go-bag.</p><p>“I have a phone in my backpack,” Lily finally said to her brother in a whisper. </p><p>He turned his head sharply to look at her. </p><p>“What?” he kept his voice low, “I thought Dad left them all out in the car.”</p><p>Lily’s eyes remained on the mercenary and her parents, but none of them turned toward where the kids sat in the bunk room. Lily suspected that they couldn’t hear them over the roaring, crackling fire in the stove and the wind pushing at the cabin from outside. </p><p>“He did,” she said, “I have another. Darlene gave it to me.”</p><p>“You have a burner?” Will said earnestly, his eyes round and his look impressed.</p><p>Will’s eyes suddenly took on disappointment. </p><p>“There’s no way we’re getting a signal. Dad had to go all the way out to the road and even then he said service was shoddy.”</p><p>“So we go to the road,” Lily said, shooting looks into the other room.</p><p>“How?” Will hissed, his nerves finally catching up to him. “Just stroll past the pissed off merc with a gun?”</p><p>Lily shook her head and pointed toward the far corner of the bunk room, to where a few bits of leaves had blown in from outside. </p><p>“We wait until Mom has to pee again and then we go through the wall,” she whispered. The man had been letting their heavily pregnant mother use the outhouse, but he always took their father with them and held the gun on him outside while she used the facilities. He padlocked the kids in the cabin when he did so. Lily could see the fading autumn light coming through a crack in the far corner. The wall was weak with age and weather. </p><p>“You have some Hulk powers I don’t know about?” Will said. </p><p>“Look Will, the sun is shining through it. I’m betting money the wood is totally rotted out,” she said, “we move two boards and we could both fit through there.” </p><p>Will looked skeptical. </p><p>“I don’t want to leave Mom,” he said. </p><p>Lily reached over and squeezed his hand. </p><p>“Listen,” she said, “if we take ourselves out of the equation, Dad has a much better chance of protecting her. If he doesn’t have to worry about us, maybe he can do something.”</p><p>Will bit his lip, thinking. </p><p>“You think?” he said. </p><p>“Yes,” Lily hissed, sensing him coming around to her way of thinking. “Go put on another sweatshirt and whatever else you have in your bag. We can hike out to the road and get a signal. Call for help. But it’s going to be cold.”</p><p>The cold was already pushing at them from the outside walls of the bunk room. </p><p>She slipped off the bed and over to her bag, quietly pulling out the winter hat that she’d had wrapped around the phone. It was a cheap little Nokia -- old and barely capable of texting -- but Darlene had given it to her for a reason. Hopefully it had held a charge well; she’d kept it switched off. She wouldn’t turn it on until they were out by the road. She hoped like hell the archaic little thing could pick up a signal. </p><p>She threw on another sweatshirt and the knit hat and once again glanced at the door to the main room. The man Luis kept glancing at his watch. He didn’t seem the least bit interested or worried about the two teenagers in the bunk room -- Lily hoped he would continue to underestimate them. </p><p>She glanced over at her brother who was pulling on a fleece jacket and shoving a pair of wool socks into his pockets, and then moved surreptitiously to the far side of the room, pushing experimentally at the wooden wall of the cabin where the crack of weak sun shone through. It gave, easily. </p><p>She nodded at her brother. They could do this. They just needed to wait for the right opportunity, which came about twenty minutes later when Lily heard the low words of her mother asking to once again use the restroom. </p><p>Once they heard the click of the padlock on the front door, she dropped to her knees and pushed on the wall in earnest, the old construction tack paper disintegrating in her hands. The outhouse was on the opposite side of the cabin -- they had to be fast. The boards on the outside of the cabin were so rotted and moist that she met little resistance when she pushed again, and a small part of the board popped off with barely a sound and thunked to the leaves outside. If they were careful, they could get out without anyone noticing they were gone until they were well away and into the surrounding woods. Will dropped to his knees next to her, eying the small hole in the wall. </p><p>“Whoa,” he said. </p><p>“Help me,” Lily whispered, and she began pushing at the boards with more desperation. </p><p>Will grabbed the edge of the hole and started pulling it in, and after a moment it snapped off with a crack which sent him sprawling backwards onto his butt, a piece of the board still in his hands. Wind started coming in through the hole, blowing in leaves and other debris.</p><p>Lily looked to the doorway of the bunk room, ears tuned to listen for the scrape of the padlock on the cabin’s door. The hole in front of them was probably about two feet by one foot. One more chunk of board coming off and they could probably scramble through. They pried at the next piece in earnest, but it was drier and much stronger than the first piece had been. Her heart was hammering in her chest --  they were running out of time. </p><p>“Here,” she said, shoving the cell phone into Will’s hands, “take this. You’re smaller than me. If I can get one more piece off, get through the hole and run like hell.”</p><p>“Lil-” he said, leaning back as though he were about to argue with her.</p><p>“Do it,” she hissed at him, once again looking to the doorway, “I’ll be right behind you.” She heard a thump from the cabin’s door.</p><p>William shoved the phone into his jeans pocket and looked at her, his face pale. Lily reached out and squeezed his shoulder. </p><p>“For Mom,” she said, and he nodded. </p><p>She assessed the board in front of her and pushed hard with her legs. It cracked under the pressure, the sound of each splintering seeming to ring out like a gunshot. Will glanced nervously at the door, and she reared back and gave the board one more sharp kick, sending it flying outside with a loud clatter. </p><p>She heard a sound of alarm from the main room as the cabin door burst in and Will dove easily through the hole, shimmying outside quickly. She heard the clumping of boots coming toward the room, and dove headfirst through the hole, the sharp edges of the remaining boards catching on her sweatshirt and holding her fast. Her hands clawed into the mulchy substrate of the forest floor, giving her nothing to push or pull against. </p><p>A shout rang out behind her, followed by two gunshots. She kicked out with her feet, the boards scraping her lower back raw and then she was through and free. She scrambled up from hands and knees and took off in the direction of the county road, running as fast as she could -- the wind whipping fiercely at her face, the skin of her back on fire. </p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>“Fuck!” Luis hissed, stumbling back into the room, smoke from the nose of the gun still leaking out of it. </p><p>Mulder’s gut was still in his shoes, blood thrumming in his ears, bowel-loosening fear for his kids running roughshod through his heart. </p><p>Scully’s eyes were wide with terror as she looked between Luis and Mulder, her mouth open in a round O. </p><p>“Your fucking kids are gone,” Luis said, his accent getting thicker with the force of his fury. He was bouncing the Glock angrily against the side of his leg. </p><p>Mulder felt a wild rush of relief and had to stop himself from outright grinning. </p><p>“Good luck to them,” Luis then said after a moment, his voice returning to the oily slickness of a man used to getting what he wanted. “They’ll probably freeze to death or get mauled by a bear. I still have what I need.” </p><p>At that he looked to Scully and smiled smugly, and Mulder’s relief turned back to worry. </p><p>The mercenary appeared to be waiting for something or someone, most likely transportation to whisk Scully off to God knows where to do God knows what with her and the baby. Mulder thanked whatever entity was responsible for getting his other kids out of harm’s way. He now only had Scully and the baby to worry about -- he was more than confident that Lily and Will could take care of themselves, so long as they stayed out of the way of whoever was coming to assist Luis. </p><p>XxXxXxXxXxX</p><p>Lily tore through the forest, expecting at any moment to hear more gunshots or the sound of the mercenary pursuing them, but she heard nothing but the sound of her feet churning through the duff and her own breath and heartbeat, pounding in her ears. She avoided the overgrown path that led to the cabin, instead running through the forest alongside it. When she felt she could run no more, she slowed and stopped, leaning her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She had not run since completing varsity cross country the fall before, and her lungs burned from the effort. Will, who had been consistently playing hockey or some variation thereof pretty much since he turned 10, was hopefully far ahead of her. </p><p>Keeping the path to her left, she knew she was headed toward the road, though the daylight was waning. There would be no one on the seasonal road that hit the path from the cabin -- they would have to hike all the way out to the county road -- and even then she worried that there might not be a car for hours -- even days -- it was as remote a place as she had ever been. </p><p>The skin of her back had begun to hurt less, though it occasionally stung when brushed with the tee shirt she wore under her baggy sweatshirt. Her mouth was dry and she had a headache from the adrenaline surge -- and, she suspected -- dehydration. </p><p>Eventually she passed the CR-V off to her left through the trees, parked where they had left it in the middle of the forest, inert and dark, a membrane of dirt and leaf detritus built up on its wiper blades. </p><p>The forest around her seemed a darker shade of brown, as if she were in a horror movie and the director had swapped out a gel to give everything a more sinister feel. Tree branches creaked as wind blew through the upper branches and the only other sound was the hollow rat-a-tat of a woodpecker doing its duty somewhere far away. Lily pulled the loose sweatshirt tighter around herself and trudged on with her head down. </p><p>She heard a branch or twig snap from ahead of her and froze, eyes and ears attuned to any sign of movement. Another broken twig and then she heard the whisper-shout "<em> Lily </em>!"</p><p>"Will!" she called out, trying not to do it too loudly. </p><p>Then it was all crashing twigs and shuffling leaves and her brother broke through a line of bracken to her right and practically tackled her with a hug. </p><p>"Oh my God, Lily," he said, breathing hard, "I didn't think we were going to make it."</p><p>She pushed him away from her so she could catch his eye and said, "I did. I knew we'd make it. We've got more to do, though, come on." </p><p>With that they kept trudging through the woods in silence, until finally they spilled out onto the seasonal road that was really no bigger than a two track. </p><p>"Give me the phone," she said, turning to her brother. </p><p>He reached down into his pocket and pulled it out. </p><p>"I haven't been able to get a signal yet. I've been trying."</p><p>Lily looked down at the display. The old Nokia screen read "No Service" and showed barely half a battery's worth of charge. </p><p>"Okay," she said, "I'm turning it off. We need to save the battery until we get to the main road." She pushed the phone into the kangaroo pouch on the front of her sweatshirt -- it was a Michigan State hoodie that she'd borrowed from Travis. If she stuck her nose into the collar and huffed, it still smelled like him. </p><p>She took a deep breath and tried to center herself. "Come on," she said after a moment, "let's go."</p><p>XxX</p><p>Darkness had fallen by the time they hit the pavement of the county road. The moon was half full and the little light that it provided turned the shadows menacing, each dark space a void of whispered threat. The temperature had dropped with the sun, and they could see their breath in front of themselves, standing on the side of the road. Will's shoulders were hunched and he had his hands crammed deep into his pockets for warmth. He'd been sweating when she found him, which was now coming back to bite him.</p><p>Lily was holding the phone up above her head, walking up and down the pavement, trying to get a signal. </p><p>"Anything?" Will said hopefully. </p><p>"No," she sighed, dropping her arm. She once again flicked off the power button and pocketed the phone. They were now down to about a quarter's worth of battery power. </p><p>She reached back to flip the hood over her head and pulled the strings tight. Will appeared to shiver, once. </p><p>"We should probably hunker down. Close to the road, in case a car comes," she said. Her brother nodded his head miserably. </p><p>The embankment next to the road wasn't deep, but it was wet, so they had to hop across it. Lily slid down the trunk of the first big tree they came to and Will sat next to her, leaning into her side for warmth. She put her arm around her brother and squeezed his shoulder. </p><p>"My sweatshirt is pretty big if you want to try to share it," she said kindly.</p><p>"You mean like our Get Along Shirt?" he chuckled. </p><p>Their father had once, when they were much smaller and fighting almost constantly, taken one of his old grey tee shirts and put both kids inside of it side-by-side, each with an arm out one hole. They'd had to wear it for twenty minutes, and while they had stopped physically fighting (it had been admittedly difficult to do so with only one free hand), they had instead complained so loudly and vociferously (the teamwork their father had been ironically pulling for) that he whipped it off their heads after ten minutes and never forced them to wear it again. Their mother, bemused and watching from the kitchen, had never said a word. </p><p>Lily laughed out loud. "Something like that," she said. </p><p>"Nah," he said, "I'm okay." He shivered once in counterpoint and pushed himself a little further into her side. </p><p>XxX</p><p>When the grey dawn broke, they both stood and stamped feeling into tired, cold feet. They hadn’t slept much and had yet to see a car. They were hungry, thirsty and each a bundled coil of nerves. </p><p>"Do you think we should hike out? Down the road? See if we can get a signal?" Will asked. His wiry copper locks were plastered to his head on one side where he'd been laying against her.</p><p>It was then that Lily heard a distant hum. She and Will moved to the edge of the trees, and she leaned slightly out to try to get a look at the approaching vehicle. It was a grey van, pulling a trailer that had two ATV four-wheelers strapped to it. </p><p>"What do you think?" she asked her brother. The van was coming on fast and if they were to try to flag it down for help, they'd need to do so in the next few seconds. </p><p>Will nodded at her, and they both darted out of the tree line simultaneously, waving their arms in the air. The van slowed as it approached and Lily saw the driver's side window come down. It rolled to a stop about ten feet away from them and a man leaned out and gave them both an assessing look. </p><p>"You guys okay?" he asked. </p><p>"We're-" Lily started and then stopped herself. "We have someone at our camp who requires medical attention. Can you call 911?"</p><p>"Sure, I can do that," the man said, and then pulled out a phone. He leaned it away from his ear and waved them closer to his vehicle. When the call appeared to connect, he leaned back into it and said, "Hi yes, I've got a medical emergency here at... Christ, where are we? Uh, M-95 about ten miles north of Felch Mountain... Yeah... I'm not exactly sure, I got some kids on the side of the highway here... Uh-huh... Okay... You bet."</p><p>He disconnected the call and lowered the phone. "The dispatcher wants y'all to wait here until they can get the Sheriff and ambulance out here. You guys want to wait in the van? It’s cold and I got some water and snacks..." </p><p>Lily was about to refuse when she heard Will's stomach growl loudly. </p><p>"Yeah," she said, "okay, thanks."</p><p>The man leaned over and unlocked the passenger door as they approached and rolled down that window as well. </p><p>"Sorry," he said, "got the back full of hunting crap. Hop on in."</p><p>With a hand on the door, she thought about just asking the man to hand them a bit of food and water, but Will looked so cold and miserable that she opened the door and swung herself up and into the seat. Will followed her, and they sat cramped together in the passenger seat, which was at least fairly substantial in size. </p><p>The man handed them each a bottle of water and a Slim Jim from a cooler just behind his seat and nodded at the door. </p><p>"Can you close that behind you? I want to pull us off the road."</p><p>Will did as the man asked, guzzling the water and ripping into the meat stick, chewing loudly. The man nudged the van forward, but instead of immediately pulling off the road, he drove a ways down it, though not fast. </p><p>"Hey, mister," Lily started to say, studying him. He was roughly their parents’ age, with dark thick hair and an almost feminine nose. He wore black tactical pants and a black jacket, and emerging from just below it, Lily recognized the bottom of a holster. It was the same model as the one her mother carried. When she looked back up to find the man's eyes, he was holding a gun aimed right at her face. Will had yet to notice, busy as he was stuffing his face, and he only looked up when the driver pulled into the entrance of the two-track that led to Camp Hi-Early. Will's face went ashen. </p><p>Lily, her guts gone liquid, cleared her throat. "You didn't call 911, did you?" she asked, and the man's face pulled into a slow menacing smile. </p><p>"No," he said, "I didn't."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Betas: My heart</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>October 24</span>
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  <span>Scully was half-elated, half terrified when her children escaped from the cabin and their captor. It removed them from harm’s way, but gave the mercenary who held them a sole focus -- herself and the child she carried, and Mulder.</span>
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  <span>Luis seemed to be even more amped up by their escape, checking his watch and trying his phone twice as often. When she rose and requested a drink of water, the man stood so quickly from the chair he sat in that it fell backwards to the floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stood, twitchy and suspicious, looked at her a moment and then nodded tersely. She turned to go into the kitchen when a powerful force seized her and she stumbled, grabbing onto the back of Mulder’s chair. </span>
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  <span>“Scully!” he said, alarmed. He rose and moved to her side as the gunman watched them, tense but otherwise expressionless. </span>
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  <span>The pain wrapped around her middle and went all the way to her back. She’d experienced back labor during her labor with William and remembered the agonizing sensation. This was the real thing. </span>
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  <span>“Mulder,” she whispered, dragging her eyes up to him. She saw realization dawn on him, saw the mix of tender excitement and abject fear. </span>
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  <span>“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispered, tilting his head to the side to look at her. They rarely used pet names for each other, but the sound of those words on his lips made her stalwart exterior crumple. Tears fell from her eyes. She looked at him and tried to tell him silently all the things he’d ever meant to her, and all the things he ever would. </span>
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  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
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  <span>“Here’s how it’s going to work,” the man said, to Lily. “We are going to unload the ATVs off of the trailer. We are going to drive them to the camp where your family is staying. You will be on one, your brother and I will be on the other. I will have a gun to your brother’s head the entire time. You try anything, I shoot him. He tries anything, I shoot him.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily nodded, and she could hear Will swallow with some difficulty next to her. “My colleague at the camp… Is he alive?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Lily said, not taking her eyes off the barrel of the gun. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” he said “Do what I say, and no one has to die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily could feel the weight of the burner phone in the front pocket of her sweatshirt and sweat broke out on her upper lip. Maybe, she thought, maybe she could still use it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully grasped his hand tightly, eyes closed, breathing hard. As the night wore on and windows outside the cabin turned pale, her contractions seemed to be progressing as they ought, but she was in pain -- terrible pain -- and his heart clenched for her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t done this since Lily was born nearly two decades before -- holding the hand of his wife while she battled to bring his child into the world.  He still felt an overriding guilt for not being there for her during her complicated and troubled delivery of William. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembered walking down the hallway toward her room the day he was born, his breath shaky and halting, not knowing what he’d find. There had been a strange sense of deja vu as he approached her door that night, and he had an odd mental picture — an actual phantasmagoria — flash through his mind unbidden of walking in and seeing Scully, her hair shorter than she had ever cut it, her body on the bed thin and reedy -- most definitely not pregnant. He could still see it in his mind’s eye, Scully lying on her side in the hospital bed, wires and IVs coming out of her, a nasal cannula over her ears. She wore a teal hospital gown and the look on her face was one of horrified surprise. The flash had so disturbed him that he ran the last few feet to her labor and delivery room and crashed through the door, which knocked into the rubber stopper on the wall. There Scully lay, in a pink gown, her hair long and her face pale, but smiling, their son lying peacefully on her chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook himself of the memory and concentrated on his wife. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man had Will unhooking the ATVs as he pushed them back and off the ramp of the trailer, his gun strapped to a holster on his leg. Lily had her hand in her pocket thumbing the phone, trying to remember which button was “on” from memory. She depressed the button and the ancient phone beeped once, the sound covered by the merc turning on and revving the first four-wheeler, luck on her side, for once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He moved to the side of the van and pulled out a mid-sized black canvas attache case that had a biohazard warning patch on the side. He secured it to the back of one of the vehicles and then winked at her. Lily’s insides went cold, thinking of her mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pointed at the ATV and looked to Will. “Hop on, William,” he commanded. They had not told him their names. Her brother mounted the four-wheeler, licking his lips nervously. The merc turned to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know how to drive one of these?” he asked her. She shook her head. He pointed, impatient. “Throttle. Brake. Get on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know where to go,” the man said, then revved his engine, the noise a loud mechanical crank in the sleepy peace of the forest. A flock of birds were startled into flight from the trees above, taking wing into the autumn sky, a flutter of panicked commotion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mulder, I need you to promise me something,” Scully said weakly. She was tiring and had refused food. She was laying on the narrow cot by the stove and he was sitting next to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything,” he said, brushing back the hair from her forehead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be a hero,” she half-whispered. “I need you. The kids need you. Don’t… don’t try anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luis, listening in from a few yards away, spoke for the first time in an hour. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘S good advice,” he sneered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily slid the phone out of her pocket and took a surreptitious look down. It was on. She glanced back up to watch where she was going -- the trees here were much closer together -- saplings growing like weeds in a field. She had to swerve quickly to miss one and she heard the mercenary shout from behind her. Her quick turn had lifted the right side of the ATV’s wheels almost off the ground -- if she’d been leaning the wrong way or even at all, the whole thing would have gone over. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Straightening and watching her path on a fresh surge of adrenaline, she glanced once again at the phone -- there was a single bar of service showing. She was so shocked she almost dropped it. Licking her lips, she kept her eyes ahead and dialed 911, glancing down once or twice to make sure she’d entered it correctly. She pressed “send.” She was driving one-handed and was hoping the merc didn’t notice. Even with the roar of the engines, she could hear the phone dialing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were almost to the cabin. She could smell woodsmoke. If they cleared one more rise, they’d be there.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The burr of the phone ringing was the only thing she could hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Up the rise, she knew the ATV was still right behind her, knew that there was still a gun trained at her brother's head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"9-1-1, what... your emergency?" she could hear the dispatcher through static. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she was over the hill. The cabin sat before them, a squat building standing stalwart in a field of trees, smoke leaking from the chimney and sinking to the ground like an escher painting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt the machine under her go over an unexpected bump on the right side and the wheels rise up slightly. She took a chance on creating enough of a distraction for emergency services to trace her call. She leaned hard left and gravity did the rest, tipping the ATV in what felt like a slow motion fall onto its side. Lily, wearing neither helmet nor seatbelt fell hard onto her shoulder, her head snapping into the earth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rolled, and the machine missed her leg, but the phone went flying out of her hand, arcing through the air and into the leaf cover. The other ATV revved to catch up with her and then stopped close to the cabin on a spray of dirt and leaf pieces. Then the engine cut, and she could hear the voice on the other end of the phone several yards away cutting in and out in static. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stars burst behind her eyes like fireworks popping in the night. When her vision cleared, the man was standing over her, his boots so close to her face that she could smell the leather. Her brother was close, but was clearly wary of the mercenary, and she saw him take several steps backward toward the cabin, his eyes on his sister and the dangerous tableau before him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man before her lifted a foot and she braced herself for a kick or a blow, but instead he took several steps off into the duff and then once again lifted his heavy booted foot up and this time slammed it down hard onto the staccato-voiced cell phone in the leaves, the static turning into silence with an almighty metallic crunch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully’s contractions were extremely close together. She was lying on the cot, her face a sheen of perspiration. Mulder almost didn’t hear the sound of the engines over her groan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luis, who had been watching Scully intensely, his brows knitted together, stood quickly when he heard the motors. There was a chaotic sound outside and then the engines cut, close to the cabin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About fucking time,” Luis hissed and then was out the door, leaving it open. Mulder looked to Scully and then, very slowly and deliberately leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No matter what happens,” he whispered, “I always have and always will love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully nodded and then another contraction pressed on her and she winced. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mulder, I’m feeling really pushy,” she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” Mulder swore, standing without much hope of doing anything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully opened her mouth and let out an unholy yowl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, from outside the cabin, they heard the unmistakable voice of their fifteen year old son: “Mom?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” said the merc to William from where he stood by the cabin’s door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily rolled up to her knees and shook her head, standing woozily, just as the man Luis came barreling out the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where the fuck have you been?” Luis hissed at the other man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get your panties out of your ass, Cardinal,” he said. “I’m here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s in labor, you greasy piece of shit. We’re on the fucking clock.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another dump of adrenaline hit Lily’s bloodstream and she took several steps toward her brother, who was still looking at the cabin in alarm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded at Luis and unstrapped the black attache kit from the back of his ATV, walking to the open doorway, where he paused. He pointed to where Lily stood, not far from her brother. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Watch these two,” he said, “and maybe don’t lose them this time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...and maybe don’t lose them this time,” Mulder heard from the doorway. The voice was familiar, and when he looked to the man’s face, he was taken over by such an unholy rage that his vision quite literally tunneled, going black from the sides. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d launched himself before anyone knew quite what was happening, even himself. His body hit the other man’s full force and they flew outside, landing in the duff and scattering dirt from the force of their impact. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Krycek,” he hissed, “you son of a bitch-” and then he reared back his fist and delivered a haymaker to the man’s chin -- all the pent of fury of finding Scully at the top of Skyland Mountain all those years ago crashing back -- Krycek’s head whipped back, spraying blood onto the O horizon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d say this for her brother: his time on the ice had served him well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cardinal was as taken by surprise as everyone else by their father’s furious launch at the other merc, and Will, who had been standing several feet away, took the opportunity to grab his improvised hockey stick, which had been propped up by the door on the outside of the cabin and swung it with everything he had at the man. It connected with Cardinal directly across the temple; the dull, sickening thud the best thing Lily had ever heard. Cardinal hit the wall of the cabin and crumpled, sliding to the ground like bubbles down wet skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her father’s head whipped around to see what had happened behind him, and Krycek seized the opportunity to kick Mulder hard, sending him flying backwards. Both men scrambled up to standing when Scully appeared in the doorway of the cabin, taking two shaky steps outside. Everyone turned to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mulder,” she rasped, looking at her husband, distraught, “I think it’s time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxXxXxXxXxX</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder looked to his wife. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully then let out a scream and stumbled forward, grabbing onto a nearby tree for support. Lily dashed to her side without thinking, giving Krycek the opportunity to swing the gun he still held in his hand up to train it on both of them. Mulder’s heart rose to his throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>From nowhere, Krycek produced another pistol, which he aimed at Will, who had been attempting to get around the side of the cabin after felling Cardinal. Mulder froze. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"This ends one of two ways!" Krycek shouted, stopping everyone in their tracks. There was a smear of blood running down his chin. "All of you dead, or everyone alive. I really don't care one way or the other."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Krycek flicked the gun once at Will, who dropped the stick and made his way over to his sister, who was still several feet away from Scully, who had taken a few staggered steps before slumping to her knees, knocked back by another powerful contraction, this one right on the heels of the last. She was panting, and swung her eyes up to Mulder drunkenly. Krycek had a gun on her and one on their children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"All right," Mulder said, anguish gripping him, "all right." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was out of options. He looked to the functioning four-wheeler that Krycek had come in on. Krycek could have Scully on it and to the county road in less than ten minutes. The other four wheeler was still on its side, smoking, the smell of gas and oil ripe in the air. He'd never be able to get to them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder looked at Scully. He looked at his children. Hopelessness rose in his gut like vomit, consuming and poisonous. He thought vaguely of bum-rushing Krycek once again, one last sacrifice to save those he loved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment slowed to a honied drip. Five seconds to make a choice, each one ticking by more slowly than the one before it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>One</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He thought of Lily as a baby, of William; the newborn smell of their sweet red hair. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Two</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He thought of Olivia Kurtzweil, sitting across from him in his office. Lying dead on her own floor. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Three</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He thought of Samantha, her thick braids flying out behind her, laughing as she ran down the beach in Quonochontaug. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Four</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He thought of his first day of firearms training at Quantico. His instructor laying a pistol on the countertop and saying: “</span>
  <em>
    <span>It takes only seven pounds of pressure to pull a trigger</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Five</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He thought of Scully. Of their first meeting in the basement office, her bright seafoam eyes and her chipper little handshake. He thought of her terrified face atop Skyland Mountain, how her hands felt around his neck as he carried her all the way down. He thought of how she gasped when he touched her, of the dusky way her skin looked in the moonlight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He moved to take a step toward her, but was shocked into stillness when a gun shot rang out out of nowhere and Krycek slumped to the ground. Mulder turned to where the shot had come from and there, standing in the middle of the Northwoods forest in a pristine white blazer and jeans stood Lauren, the archaic rifle that had adorned the deer mount on the cabin wall pressed expertly to her shoulder. Smoke wafted out of the barrel, and she slowly lowered the weapon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You stopped answering your phone, Fox,” she said. “We had a deal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>XxX </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will and Lily were both facing away from where Krycek had fallen, looking at Lauren in surprise, and Mulder took three large strides to get to them before they could turn and see what was left of the man. He grabbed them by the shoulders, one hand on each of them and leaned down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” he said, in a quiet voice, “we’re all okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will turned into him and buried his face into his father’s chest. Lily put her hand over his and turned toward Scully, who was leaning against a tree, one arm wrapped tightly around her stomach. Luis Cardinal was still out cold by the cabin’s wall, his arm thrown out an odd angle. Mulder hoped it was broken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you guys help your mom into the cabin?” he said and both kids went immediately to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He heard the crunching of leaves and found Lauren at his shoulder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I called the county Sheriff before I came onto the property,” she said in a low voice, “I don’t know how long it will take them to get here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder turned to her in full.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” he said, his voice shaky, “You saved my family.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re all the family I have left,” she said, “and you would have done the same for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulled her tightly to him. She gave him a brief squeeze, the rifle she was holding pressing into his hip. She pulled back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please tell me Dana’s not in labor,” she said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dana’s in labor.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lauren took a deep breath and glanced down at the man whose life she had taken not moments before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t look,” Mulder said gently. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lauren nodded stoically and shouldered the rifle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s another merc by the cabin,” Mulder said, “alive. Can you help me secure him? See if there’s some rope or something inside?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lauren nodded and headed into the cabin, and Mulder turned to Krycek and pushed him over onto his back with his foot. The man was looking straight up with sightless eyes. Then Mulder noticed several pairs of zip ties that Krycek had had secured to his utility belt. He tried not to think of what he’d planned to use them for, and pulled one from the dead man’s waist. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We need to make this quick,” Lauren said as she came out the door, her statement punctuated by a low, feminine moan from inside the cabin. Mulder’s gut roiled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s go,” he said, and dragged Cardinal roughly by the shoulders to a medium pine not far from the cabin door. Mulder wrenched the man’s hands behind his back around the tree and Lauren cinched the zip tie on tightly. He gave a light moan but was otherwise still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they trotted back into the cabin, they found both kids at their mother’s side, wearing panicked, wary faces.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully had settled onto the cot that had been set up near the woodstove. Her eyes were closed and her hands gripped the steel frame. Mulder asked the kids to collect clean linens and blankets from the cedar cabinet and then went back outside to pull Krycek’s body over behind a large tree, knowing he was disturbing evidence, but not caring. He didn’t want it anywhere the kids could see. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he came back inside, Scully was propped up on pillows, Lauren kneeling next to her. They both turned to him. Scully reached out her hand and he walked over and grabbed it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any sign of the Sheriff?” Lauren asked in a low voice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder shook his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully winced and squeezed his hand, gritting her teeth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her contractions are one on top of each other, Fox,” Lauren said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily had drifted over and spoke from Mulder’s elbow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you give me and Will something to do?” she said, “he’s kind of freaked, and so am I.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey Will,” Mulder said, “can you take the bucket to the pump and bring us water?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah!” Will jumped up and grabbed the bucket by the kitchen wall and scooted outside quickly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lily,” Mulder said, and she looked up at him. “Do you think you can help your mom?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I can,” Lily said, and went to Scully’s other side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully looked up to Mulder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m feeling really pushy,” she said once again and gave him a </span>
  <em>
    <span>this is serious</span>
  </em>
  <span> look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You pitch, I’ll catch,” Mulder said easily, trying to project a confidence he didn’t feel, and moved to the end of the bed. He helped Scully pull down her leggings and get situated back on the bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully was breathing hard and took another deep breath, trying to slow herself down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lil,” she said, pausing to close her eyes and breathe through her nose, “you hold one knee, Lauren will hold the other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily nodded bravely and grabbed her mother’s leg firmly. Lauren did the same on Scully’s other side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder could see a bright thatch of hair already crowning between Scully’s legs and grabbed a clean towel, reaching forward. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh my god,” Lauren said, just as Scully gave another almighty yell. The baby’s head was all the way out. One more push and Mulder caught his second son as he careened into the world, registering his complaints loudly for anyone who would hear them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will came banging through the door just as Mulder was placing the child on Scully’s chest, a full bucket of water sloshing over where it hung from his hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Sheriff is here!” he said, as he took in the sight before him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come and meet your brother,” Scully said, smiling tiredly, sweat beaded on her brow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>
    <em>EPILOGUE</em>
  </b>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Lily stood in front of the building nervously twirling a lock of hair around her fingers, over and over; a tic she’d had since childhood. Her father was parked not quite a block up the avenue waiting for her -- not totally out of sight, but enough to afford her some privacy. She glanced at his car's taillights once and then looked back at the old building with its colossal white columns and bright red brick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew Travis's schedule well enough that she shouldn’t have been surprised when he emerged from the double doors of the Old Engineering Hall, but her heart skipped a beat anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was several steps out when he noticed her standing at the base of the old cement staircase, and he pulled up short, cinching his backpack once contemplatively before continuing his descent. He stopped in front of her, but made no move to touch her or talk. He merely looked at her, waiting for her to say something. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gave him a tentative smile that he didn't return. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hi," she finally said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hello," he said. He didn't sound angry or upset, merely expectant, maybe a little resigned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt tears welling in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She couldn't think of a thing to say -- where to possibly start telling him her story. He must have sensed how overwhelmed she was, as he took a breath and said, not unkindly:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You were supposed to meet me for lunch. You never showed up."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pressed her lips together and nodded her head, remembering the feeling of being pursued through the student union, of holding her father's hand and running from Darlene's house, thinking she may have gotten her whole family killed. Of running through the trees. Of gunshots and the hot ozone smell of cordite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I called you," he went on, "I called you like thirty times."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I didn't have my phone," she finally said, "I couldn't-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"-you didn't have to ghost me, Lillian," he interrupted, "I was afraid something happened to you... I was about to call the cops when I realized that I didn't actually know where you lived." His tone was serious, a touch disappointed, and it made Lily's insides feel like iced lead.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My... my name's not Lillian," she whispered, and the tears finally fell from her eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tilted his head like a confused pup and looked at her, puzzled and upset. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she told him. Everything. She took a breath and let loose with everything she and her family had been through for the last nine months. In a teary voice with hitching sobs, she told him about her family's genetic legacy, about going on the run, about how she had managed to feel safe and happy when she was with him, able to forget -- at least for a few hours -- about the dangers pressing on her from all sides. And finally about the last 72 hours and her life at the other end of a pointed gun. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stood, staring at her in fascination and what looked like disbelief. When the last word of explanation had been said, she could feel her insides wilt a little in relief; everything out in the open, the last of her words falling out of her mouth and sinking to the ground, heavier than air. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I… I would understand if you didn’t believe me,” she finished. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as she steeled herself for his withering incredulity and disbelief, he took one giant step toward her, dropping his backpack as he moved, and wrapped her in his thick, sturdy embrace. She felt herself melt into his caress like liquid, felt his hand come up to hold her head tightly to his chest, his fingers threading through her hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe you,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She experienced a relief so profound she gave an involuntary sob into the solid mass of him, as he murmured words of encouragement and comfort into her ear. She figured out in that moment what love was. It was this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn't sure how long they held each other, but he didn't pull back until she did, and even then he reached out and grabbed her face in both hands lightly, his thumbs rubbing her cheekbones in a gossamer wisp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Jesus," he finally said, searching her eyes with his intense hazel gaze. She gave him a shaky smile and a half laugh and he dropped one hand to her arm, leaving the other on her face, which she leaned into. "I don't know your real name," he chuffed kindly, "What do I even call you?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiled, sniffed -- probably unattractively, she thought -- and closed her eyes once before looking at him with affection. "I'm kind of partial to 'Frisbee,' to be honest," she said. He leaned down and kissed her with everything he was worth.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Again, I could never have done this without the encouragement and wisdom of my betas. Thank you, ladies.</p><p>Crusher and Apgar are fine, but cranky. When the entire family returned back to Virginia with the fifth Mulder, Crusher wouldn't talk to Scully for exactly 37 minutes. Apgar was just happy to see everybody.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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